The former head of the Michigan’s drinking water office has been fired after an investigation into the state’s oversight of Flint’s switch to a new water source that ultimately led to lead contamination.
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St. Paul still has thousands of homes connected to lead pipes as well. Yet, when queried about whether he would pay to replace the city’s lead-leaching water pipes, he demurred, using the old dodge that “more studies are needed”.
One of those who hopes the problems that surfaced in Flint are addressed in the revisions is Hilliard L. Hampton II.
Worse, when Flint’s families immediately and loudly complained that their tap water was oddly colored, nasty tasting, stinky and causing rashes on their children, Snyder and his top officials did nothing.
“EPA will carefully evaluate these recommendations, national experience in implementing the rule, and the experience in Flint to develop a proposed revision to the rule”, she said, referring to the advisory council’s list. Because at this point, resignation is about the best scenario for Snyder and for the poisoned city of Flint.
The Republican governor told The Associated Press Friday that an aide, Harvey Hollins, asked the Department of Environmental Quality to look into a local official’s concerns further.
“What’s happened here is a complete failure of our government”, Edwards says. “Their employee did this unbelievable thing to protect the population, even put his job on the line to do so, and his boss… covered this up and sat silently by for about eight or nine months while the city was on the verge of civil unrest”. In Washington, DC, from 2001 to 2004, EPA changed the disinfectants in the city’s water supply.
“The water coming out of that tap, it’s tested thoroughly, it’s regulated closely, and people can be assured of the safety unless they’re told otherwise”, Thornley said.
Another $200 million over 10 years would be spent on a new federal center in the Health and Human Services Department to support Flint residents exposed to lead. She adds that her organization has contacted the University of MI to try to get medical students to provide lead testing at St. Mary’s, but that’s still in the works.
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This story is based on an interview that aired on PRI’s Living on Earth with Steve Curwood.
