A state-commissioned report slammed Michigan’s handling of the water crisis in Flint, saying the state is entirely to blame and attempts to blame local and federal officials are “inappropriate.”
The Flint Water Task Force, formed by Republican Gov. Rick Snyder in October, spent much of the 116-page final report released Wednesday ripping officials in the state Department of Environmental Quality, Department of Health and Human Services, state emergency managers who were in charge of Flint, Snyder, and his closest advisers.
The report stated the state government failed the residents of Flint, with primary responsibility resting on the Department of Environmental Quality. Not only did the government fail its citizens, but it mocked them, according to the report.
The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality “caused this crisis to happen,” the report stated. “Moreover, when confronted with evidence of its failures, MDEQ responded publicly through formal communications with a degree of intransigence and belligerence that has no place in government.”
In April 2014, a state emergency manager appointed by Snyder signed off on a symbolic vote from the Flint City Council to change the city’s water source. The move aimed to cut costs by requiring the city to take its water from the Flint River instead of the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department while a new pipeline was built to connect the city to Lake Huron.
The Flint River water, however, was so acidic that it caused the lead pipes bringing water from the city’s cast iron mains into homes to corrode. Lead leached off the pipes and into the drinking water throughout the city.
The state and the federal government have declared a state of emergency, and Flint residents are not able to drink the water coming out of their taps.
The story of the Flint water crisis is a long tale of state employees who were confident in their flawed or outright incorrect practices, the report shows.
A state data analyst determined there was no increase in the number of children with lead in their blood in 2014 without comparing the statistics with any previous years.
Department of Environmental Quality staffers refused to add corrosion control to Flint’s water, which would have kept the lead from going into the water, because they were wrong in their interpretation of federal law.
Department of Environmental Quality employees tested the water incorrectly and then stood by those results for months until independent investigators proved them wrong. Then, based on those results, the agency belittled concerns from the public and the Environmental Protection Agency about water quality.
Once it was clear they didn’t add corrosion control to the water, the Department of Environmental Quality ignored EPA demands to add treatment to the water for a full six months because they wanted to complete their testing process.
The report says the fact that an emergency manager was running the city invariably puts the blame on the state’s shoulders. The report makes no uncertain statements: While local officials may have supported changing the water source, it was solely the decision of the state emergency manager to switch it and to use the Flint River temporarily.
“While one must acknowledge that emergency management is a mechanism to address severe financial distress, it is important to emphasize that the role of the emergency manager in Flint places accountability for what happened with state government,” the report said.
The report rejected state officials’ claims that local and federal officials share blame for causing the crisis and it called spin from public relations officials in state government “inappropriate” for trying to spread blame to the city and the EPA.
According to the report, the local employees at the Flint Water Plant were not trained in their task of switching water sources and had to rely heavily on the Department of Environmental Quality. The state emergency manager in charge of the city also hired a contractor to assist in the water source switch who may not have had any experience with treating river water.
The Department of Environmental Quality gave the city bad advice on how to test the water and allowed “fundamentally flawed” practices to go unchecked, giving the city employees a false sense of security that the water was fine, the report stated.
“It is hard not to attribute this conduct to a misguided objective of securing [lead and copper rule] compliance irrespective of what conditions might actually exist in the homes of Flint residents,” the report stated.
The report also criticized the EPA for not using the full scope of its powers to address the situation and for being too trusting of state officials.
Along with being slow to act and too trusting, the EPA enabled state regulators to be lax in their water testing practices by not fully enforcing the lead and copper rule.
“Unfortunately, despite the clarity of its intent, the [lead and copper rule’s] language has been subject to various interpretations from one state, and one water system, to another,” the report stated. “Though MDEQ’s misinterpretations may be among the most egregious examples of lax and myopic compliance practices, there are pronounced concerns that the effectiveness of the rule has been compromised.”
Untold damage from the lead-contaminated water may have been inflicted on hundreds, if not thousands, of Flint children, according to the report.
Chris Kolb, president of the Michigan Environmental Council and co-chairman of the task force, said it was clear the Department of Environmental Quality and the rest of the state government allowed the crisis to happen.
“The Flint water crisis is a story of government failure, intransigence, unpreparedness, delay, inaction and environmental injustice,” Kolb said.
