Ohio’s Environmental Protection Agency has fired two employees and demoted a third over their handling of lead contamination in a village’s drinking water.
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The Ohio EPA, which is a state agency separate from the federal EPA, said it “has made revisions to its operating procedures involving lead in drinking water to ensue this failure is not repeated”.
However, the residents of Sebring, which is located close to Youngstown along with two other communities, say till middle of January they were not notified about the high lead levels in water which can be unsafe mainly for young children as it might cause learning disabilities along with behavioral problems. By Jan. 21, when the system still had not done so, the EPA issued a notice of violation and pulled the Sebring water system’s operator’s license. He said the investigation concluded that an Ohio EPA Central Office employee responsible for sending laboratory results from the Central Office failed to ensure that data was provided to the field office to help it conduct its review.
The employee’s supervisor also was let go. It says that’s an important step in figuring out whether lead levels are above federal guidelines.
The firings came after the agency looked into why it took months for the agency’s top administrators to find out about high lead levels in the northeast OH village of Sebring. The Agency said the employee should’ve brought the issue up as soon as it became clear the town was dragging its feet on the water review. A new process was also established to provide staff with a direct and expedited communication route to senior Ohio EPA officials of events or situations with possible significant environmental or public health consequences that are not being addressed.
State officials have said the Ohio EPA knew lead was leaking into Sebring’s water supply as far back as August.
Of almost 900 samples the Ohio EPA has received, the Agency said only 40 were above the federal allowable limit for lead.
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Giroux tells 21 News that the Village is waiting for the EPA to approve a temporary system to treat the water with phosphates, which he says should prevent the lead from leaching from water pipes.
