Flint Mayor Karen Weaver announced Thursday that Nestle will deliver thousands of bottles of water to the city every week.
The decision comes just a month after Governor Rick Snyder decided to end bottled water deliveries to Flint, citing lead levels in city water that fell within state and federal standards.
Weaver has threatened to sue the state over its decision to end bottled water delivery.
The state has also been criticized for issuing Nestle a permit to increase the amount of groundwater being withdrawn by its bottling operation in West Michigan.
Nestle will deliver three semi-truckloads of bottled water to help centers across the city every week. In a written statement, Nestle said the deliveries would continue through Labor Day.
In a written statement the Mayor said: “I thank Nestle for their willingness to help the people of Flint.”
A spokesperson for Nestle added, “Nestlé Waters North America is always prepared to provide assistance where and when it’s needed and we are proud to continue supporting the Flint community.”
Their full statement can be read below:
Nestlé Waters North America is always prepared to provide assistance where and when it’s needed and we are proud to continue supporting the Flint community.
We've been providing support to Flint since October 2015, and have been humbled to work with amazing local organizations supporting the city’s students through financial and product donations.
We’ve helped keep over 10,000 public school students hydrated, pledging up to 1.5 million bottles of water. We contributed $20,000 at the beginning of 2018 to help the schools purchase bottled water and other products and services – including water testing and water filters – to help ensure their students continue to have access to safe, clean drinking water. We have also collaborated with Keep America Beautiful and Keep Genesee County Beautiful to establish recycling infrastructure and awareness programs in the Flint schools so that the donated bottles get recycled.
We’ve been working closely with the Flint community to understand their current needs, and how we can best help meet those needs. We are now partnering with the East Michigan Food Bank to provide regular bottled water deliveries through Labor Day. Starting this week, we began donating regular truckloads of bottled water to the three East Michigan Food Bank Help Centers, located at the Greater Holy Temple, Bethel United Methodist Church and Asbury United Methodist Church. In all, we will be delivering about 50 truckloads of water.