The FBI is working with a multi-agency team investigating the lead contamination of Flint’s drinking water, alongside Environmental Protection Agency investigators who can tackle criminal violations of federal environmental law, officials said Tuesday.
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Del Toral conducted tests of Walters’ water and sought to raise warnings to both the EPA and the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ).
The water crisis in Flint, Michigan made headline news after Republican Gov. Rick Snyder declared a state of emergency in January.
Wednesday morning, Congress held a hearing on the Flint water crisis.
Marc Edwards, a Virginia Tech professor who helped expose the lead problem in September, said: “It’s hard to find moral justification in having (residents) pay for water that is not suitable for consumption nor, until recently, for bathing”.
Former Flint emergency manager Darnell Earley has been served a subpoena to testify before a Congressional oversight committee hearing later this month.
“I don’t know the answer to that question”, Beauvais told chairman Jason Chaffetz.
Bolden says he informed the committee that Earley would be willing to appear on another date, although Earley might invoke his right to remain silent.
Chaffetz vowed to ask U.S. Marshals to “hunt him down” to make him testify.
Wurfel, who resigned shortly after the mayor of Flint declared a state of emergency over the water crisis in November 2015, downplayed the point that the Flint River was causing the outbreak.
Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the ranking member of the committee, said the focus should be on finding the causes of the problem regardless of which level of government is most at fault. Because that water was not treated with corrosion control, the more corrosive river water leached lead from old pipes into residents’ taps. State officials first denied that Flint’s water had high levels of lead that adversely affect people physically and mentally for decades.
Some Democrats are urging that Gov. Rick Snyder be called to testify before the committee as well.
Democrats, who scaled back their request from $600 million to $300 million, accused Republicans of hypocrisy, saying they are quick to request aid money for disasters in their own states but have balked this time around.
Lead started leaking into Flint’s pipes after the town switched its water source from the Great Lakes to the Flint River.
Snyder and legislators last week enacted $28 million in emergency Flint funding for the current fiscal year, including $3 million to help the Flint Utilities Department with unpaid bills.
The crisis has taken on partisan overtones, as Democrats blame the Republican governor and some Republicans target the EPA for failing to intervene sooner.
“The fact that they potentially ignored information about people dying as a result of the switch is beyond comprehension”, said Scott in a statement. “We want to get to the bottom of what happened”.
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Democrats hoped to include the package in a bipartisan energy bill.
