sara ganim, cnn, flint, michigan. on top of all this, flint residents are still being charged for water, and paying some of the highest water billing rates in the u-s. the state now says it will reimburse them. and yesterday -- crews in flint dug up the first lead pipe. it )s all part of mayor karen weaver )s "fast start" initiative to begin removal of the city )s lead lines. lines in the next 29 days. workers in flint were helped by a team from lansing to learn a quicker -- i do everything on the internet. but it's kind of slow. my friends said i should get fios because it's the fastest... i just downloaded 600 photos in 60 seconds. that's seriously better. (man) we're out of 2%. i wonder what else could be better around here? (man) i heard that. now get our best offer ever. super fast 100 meg internet, plus tv & phone for just $69.99 a month online with no annualcontract. 100 meg speeds at a price this good? fios can do that. cable just can't. (finch) you are being watched. the government has a secret system-- a mac

sara ganim, thank you for that report there, and the 5 56th/madison location. >> reporter: we are getting here to trump tower. arriving right now. >> okay. >> reporter: this is where the crowd is arrive, and the plan here was also, again, to stay out of the street. the police told us they would not be closing down the street today for this protest. they wanted people to peacefully protest on the sidewalk. but take a look around. that is clearly not happening. >> all right. okay. we're going to keep our eye on this. in fact, sara ganim, squeeze te shot, keep it in the shot as we continue the conversation about what's transpiring there in new york at the same time watching developments in arizona just outside of phoenix where a number of people have gathered in demonstration of donald trump's soon arrival there in phoenix. so to the right of your screen you're seeing the earlier images where roughly 50 people, according to the sheriff's deputies opposite blocked a major thoroughfare, blocking the passage for many motorists to get to a donald trump rally that's expected to take place at any

we have sara ganim with more. >> reporter: the governor faced an angry congressional hearing.democrats demanding answers for why he was so slow to react to the flint water crisis. it was much anticipated testimony given that e-mails show his staff knew about problems for months before action was taken. he wasn't the only one under fire. president obama's administrator to the environmental protection agency also under fire for not acting quickly enough or doing enough when the epa learned of high levels of lead in flint's water. neither one got much sympathy from the committee. >> you need to resign. >> yes! >> common sense told you, hey, stop drinking the water. >> not at that point in time. >> at what point in time? >> not only am i can asking you to be fired, if you don't resign, you should be impeached. >> reporter: the two often bickering over who is more to blame. >> why didn't mccarthy get on the phone and call me? technical compliance. this is the culture that got us in trouble. >> i will take responsibility for not pushing hard enough, but i will not take responsibilit

sara ganim found a pattern at the epa of silencing whistleblowers. >> the rashes, the hair loss, then water. we had to figure out what was going on. >> reporter: after months of no answers, lee ann walters had enough. >> i went to the epa and i said get to the science of it. >> reporter: tests revealed the water coming out of the taps in the welter's home was so polluted with lead, it was twice the level of hazardous waste. >> most people think of the epa as this organization that will come in in a time of crisis and fix things. do you think that happened here? >> absolute low not. not when it should have. >> reporter: an epa scientist drafted a memo about the high levels of lead in their home, highlighting the concerns and violations of federal regulations. the memo was leaked to the public, but instead of taking tough action, the head of the regional epa office, susan headman, tried to keep it under wraps. she tried to underplay the repo report, saying the scientist acted inappropriately by sharing his findings because it was only a draft report and that only when the report is rev

sara ganim following this story has been in flint for literally months is back with us now.ve got to know them better than i admittedly. what do they want to hear tomorrow night? >> it comes down to money for new infrastructure. there has been a lack of money and abundance of red tape when it comes to fixing this issue. they will not trust their water and certainly not going to trust their government until there are new lead pipes. i want to show you. this is a lead pipe from lansing, michigan. see this orange substance inside, that's the coating that's supposed to protect lead pipes from leeching into water supply. that's what was ripped away from the pipes here in flint and that's what caused this problem. until they replace the pipes with new ones, the people say they won't trust their water and you need money to do that. the mayor has asked for $55 million so far she has gotten none of -- no money from the state or from the feds for that replacement. >> let's talk about this $250 million being held up. what do you know about that? >> so in the federal government, the u.s

our sara ganim is there.emember, these people gathered, what, near columbus circle and were going to make their way to the trump tower, but then now there's been a little bit of dust up here and there. what's going on? >> reporter: that was the plan originally, was a peaceful protest. hi, guys. would walk from columbus circle to trump towers. but the problem has been, fred it did not remain peaceful. there was a miscommunication where they were going to do, nypd trying to keep them in the street as they're supposed to be, and instead the crowds, as you can see, have been rushing -- the police barricades. chanting to push through. there are people who got pepper sprayed. there was a lapse here where it became peace. it again. they got back on track. i talked to organizers in that time saying this was simply all a miscommunication, but shortly after that, just really seconds after that, fred, the protestors began to rush the police barricade. again, in some cases, moving the barricades, nypd obviously unhappy.

sara ganim is joining us now.w, i just want to start with what you're hearing from people here. you've been here literally for months. >> people are upset, because what they're seeing is a lot of red tape and not a lot of money to fix the problem. and meanwhile, victor, there are many homes, according to the county health department, more than 600 homes that still have very, very high levels of lead in their water. i talked to one woman who had 10,000 parts per billion lead in her water. to give you an idea of how high that is, toxic waste level is considered 5,000. so, she's twice the level of toxic waste. the epa says anything over 15 is bad. that's how bad her water is. and that was just last month. that's, you know, five months after the crisis was declared here. i want to show you what we're talking about. >> okay. >> this is a lead pipe from lansing, michigan. i witnessed a pipe removal replacement there. this is a lead pipe. the orange coating inside is called a phosphate. they're supposed to protect the le

sara ganim reporting for us.ch over to weather and some really tough weather coming to the west coast. >> yeah. but it could be a double-edged sword here. it's no secret that california has been under this five-year drought, but we have a potential to break some of that drought with a series of that's going to impact that state over the next ten days. get a load of this. they could receive half of their yearly snowfall in the sierra nevada mountain range in ten days. that's going to have a significant impact on the economy in this state. think of all the melted snowpack that filters into the reservoirs and provides major drinking water to places like san francisco. this is the plume of moisture, even originating from hawaii, right across the pacific to the western half of the united states that drives that train of rainfall and snowfall in the mountains that is so beneficial for the western half of the united states. and it happens around this time of year where we get these three, four-week periods of extreme we

. >> sara ganim is here with me. lots of outrage. any solutions?to fix the problem, but the issue at hand is when they acted fast enough when they learned that the water was toxic, and for that we continue to see a lot of the blame game. governor rick snyder desperately trying to hang on to his job faced an angry congressional committee, especially democrats, demanding answers for why he was so slow to react to flint's water crisis. >> i kick myself every single day about what i could have done to do more. >> plausible deniability only works when it's plausible. and i've had about enough of your false contrition and your phony apologies. >> you need to resign. >> it wasn't just governor snyder who faced blame. republicans mostly focused their sights on president obama's epa administrator, gina mccarthy. >> wow, you just don't get it. you just don't get it. you still don't get it. >> not only am i asking you to be fired. if you're not going to resign, you should be impeached. >> snyder and mccarthy faced off in the contentious hearing, often bickeri

. >> reporter: sara ganim, cnn, washington. >> should point out at the democratic debate in flint, bothndidates, bernie sanders and hillary clinton, have called for governor snyder to step down. also said that they wanted to see the results of investigations. that hearing room today was packed. they needed overflow room to hold everyone who came to watch it, including dozens of people, as you saw in that report, from flint. among those people was a woman named leeanne walters. back in january, cnn's dr. sanjay gupta met walters' 4-year-old twin sons. like thousands of children in flint, they drank the lead-tainted water. one of the twins is much smaller than his brother. his mom says he's barely grown at all over the last year. medical experts agree that there's no safe level of lead for children. a local doctor found that lead levels in flint kids doubled and even tripled in some cases. hard to imagine after the city switched its water source to the flint river to save money. leeanne walters joins me tonight. leeanne, obviously a lot of anger and finger pointing from politicians. do yo