Michigan environmental officials were annoyed at an Environmental Protection Agency researcher’s inquiry into the amount of lead in Flint’s water and called questioning of their work “tiresome,” emails show.
As Flint, Mich., residents were drinking lead-contaminated water while the state soldiered on with its testing period, an exchange of emails between Patrick Cook, a water treatment specialist with the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, and Stephen Busch, the district supervisor for Flint with the department, showed annoyance at the investigation by EPA researcher Miguel Del Toral.
In an April 25, 2015, email, Del Toral said he was concerned about the high amount of lead found in one home in Flint and that testing protocols were not being followed in the city. He said there was no reason under law that the state should not be adding corrosion control to the water.
“The constant second guessing of how we interpret and implement our rules is getting tiresome,” Cook wrote to Busch and Mike Prysby, an engineer with the environment department.
Del Toral, in a series of emails, pushed Michigan officials on why they weren’t treating the water. He pointed to two exceptions in state rules that would allow Flint to not use corrosion control in the water and said the city didn’t qualify for either exemption.
“Given the very high lead levels found at one home and the pre-flushing happening at Flint, I’m worried that the whole town may have much higher lead levels than the compliance results indicated, since they are using pre-flushing ahead of their compliance sampling,” he wrote.
While Del Toral was pushing for corrosion control to be added to the water, other EPA officials were willing to let Flint residents drink lead-contaminated water into 2016, according to other emails released Friday by the state of Michigan.
However, state officials were willing to let it go far further.
Cook, in his email to Del Toral, pointed to state rules for testing and said the law requires two six-month testing periods to determine if corrosion control is necessary.
If it was determined Flint needed corrosion control, Cook said the city had up to two years to do a study and two more years to install corrosion control treatment “unless we set a shorter time frame.”
However, Cook pointed out that the new water source that would come from Lake Huron would come online in 2016. As such, there was no use in going through years’ long tests because that water would be of better quality than the Flint River.
“Requiring a study at the current time will be of little to no value in the long-term control of these chronic contaminants,” Cook wrote.
In October, Flint stopped using the Flint River as a water source, switching to the Detroit water system that takes water from Lake Huron.
The state ordered corrosion control to be added to the water in October 2015.
Flint residents are still being told by environmental officials that the water coming out of the taps in their city is not safe to drink.
