Unearthed emails indicate the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) knew Flint’s water was tainted in mid-2015, yet was willing to allow citizens to drink it until at least 2016.
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Michigan Governor Rick Snyder, who has apologized for the state’s poor handling of the water crisis, alerted the public to the outbreak on January 13 and said he had only heard about it two days earlier.
Snyder said a supplemental budget request that was approved last month unanimously in the Legislature, includes money for utilities and can be used to survey Flint’s underground network of pipes, according to the release.
State regulators failed to ensure that water was properly treated, and lead from aging pipes leached into the water supply. Plans for the call included discussion of “water issues”, according to an agenda released in more than 21,000 pages of documents by Snyder’s office on Friday.
Flint’s water problems stretch back to April 2014, when the city switched from Detroit water’s system, using Lake Huron water, to the Flint River under what was a temporary cost-cutting move.
Senate Minority Leader Jim Ananich, a Flint Democrat, said Snyder’s priorities for Flint “seem to match the areas we have been stressing for some time – health, education and infrastructure”. Had the controls been administered, Flint citizens might have avoided the city’s lead-infused water.
Among those concerned are some Woodland and Davis residents as their cities prepare to switch from using entirely groundwater to using mostly Sacramento River water.
Obama administration officials have already said on Friday that they expect to expand Medicaid services for Flint, including lead blood-level monitoring, behavioral health services and nutritional support for children and pregnant women in Flint as a result of the water crisis there.
Also on the witness list, EPA Chief Gina McCarthy who has held onto her job, and the EPA’s Susan Hedman, Emergency Manager Darnell Earley, and former Mayor Dayne Walling who have either quit, announced resignations, or been booted out by voters since the crisis erupted.
One resident describes the pain of water rations on camera: “For all of us to bathe in bottled water… sometimes it breaks my spirit”, she says.
Based on the criteria established by Michigan’s constitution and embedded in other state laws, it is reasonable to conclude that rights of the residents of Flint, MI have been abrogated.
Chairman and Utah Gov. Jason Chaffetz says Snyder’s willingness to testify before the committee is much appreciated. It was mainly the city of Flint, the county and the EPA which continued asked the DEQ and the state health department to take action – which they did not.
The Flint, Michigan, Legionnaires’ disease epidemic is becoming more suspicious each day, especially with the government’s insistence of blocking any investigation regarding the baffling and avoidable case of government negligence.
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Crooks’ email was sent several months after the EPA initially became aware of Flint’s water problem.
