The Environmental Protection Agency will take over testing of water in Flint, Mich., nearly one year after an agency scientist contacted Michigan authorities about potential problems with lead in the city’s drinking water.
An order issued late Thursday night shows the EPA finds the city of Flint and state of Michigan’s responses to the lead water crisis to be “inadequate to protect public health, and that these failures continue.”
In February, an EPA scientist notified state authorities of a potential lead problem with the city’s drinking water. However, the federal authority deferred to state bureaucrats and stayed silent about the findings until recent months, long after the crisis blew up into a public health emergency.
According to the order, city workers began testing the water between July and December 2014. A second six-month test done between January and June 2015 found that lead levels were “rapidly rising” in the city’s water supply.
However, the state took no action on the water supply until mid-October 2015.
In April 2014, Flint switched its water source from the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department, which draws water from Lake Huron, to a local agency that also would take water from the lake.
However, the infrastructure needed to get water from Lake Huron to Flint under the new agency was not yet built, so an emergency manager appointed by Gov. Rick Snyder decided to take water from the Flint River as a temporary measure.
The water from the Flint River is so polluted and acidic that the water ate away at the lead pipes bringing water to the city’s homes.
The state did not require Flint to put any corrosion-control chemicals into the water. Those chemicals could have prevented the leaching of lead into drinking water. The water is now being treated with those chemicals, but the corrosion controls need to once again build back up on the city’s pipes.
The order will create a website where the public can view the latest reports, sampling results, plan and weekly status reports on the lead water crisis. An independent advisory board made up of drinking water experts also will be created to ensure safe operation of the Flint water system.
Susan Hedman, the director of the region that oversees Flint and much of the Midwest, resigned Thursday night from her position over her agency’s failure to protect Flint’s citizens from the lead water crisis.
Congressional committees are looking into the EPA’s handling of the crisis. On Thursday, members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee questioned a top EPA drinking water official on how the agency handled the initial reports.
