Residents in Flint are reacting to Roland Martin’s exclusive interview with Darnell Earley, the former Emergency Manager who discussed the origins of the Flint water crisis and declined to blame anyone or accept full responsibility for conditions in the devastated American city.
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“Unthinkable errors all underscore that Flint’s crisis resulted from improper treatment of the water, an issue which fell squarely in the bailiwick of (the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality) and EPA”, Earley said in the testimony released by the committee.
“Are you kidding me?” committee chairman Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) asked former EPA Region 5 director Susan Hedman during a recent hearing, reports the Washington Examiner.
“They (the MDEQ) didn’t use common sense when applying it, but the rule itself has many structural problems that I think we should have a higher standard than that in Michigan”, Governor Snyder said. She says the agency responded within the framework of the Safe Drinking Water Act, which leaves it up to states to implement drinking water regulations.
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) said there was “unusual deference on the part of federal officials”, and she was surprised that the federal government didn’t speak up publicly about the crisis.
“In February 2015, the EPA enquired about corrosion control and we were told it was fully optimized – MI later admitted it wasn’t”, she said. The law “takes away the natural checks and balances” of democratic government and “minimizes the voices of the citizens by placing control so far away from the community”, Walling said.
But Earley said in hindsight he should have done more to challenge the experts who told him Flint’s water problems were harmless to human health and geographically limited in nature.
Flint switched its water source from Detroit’s water system to the Flint River in 2014 to save money, but the river water was not treated properly and lead from aging pipes leached into Flint homes and businesses.
Virginia Tech researcher Marc Edwards helped identify the presence of lead in the city’s water in August. During questioning, she said the agency warned residents to get their water tested. The city switched back in October after Earley vacated the emergency management position, though not in time to forestall the led leaching into Flint’s water.
The committee’s investigation will continue Thursday, when Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder will testify on what his office knew about the city’s lead levels.
“If a landlord were to engage in similar practices, and through their negligence, to allow even a single child to be exposed to lead paint risk, the EPA would argue for prosecution and incarceration”.
“I believe that I have been unjustly persecuted, vilified and smeared, both personally and professional, in the media, and by some local, state and federal officials, as well by a misinformed public”, he said. Flint has actually been under the control of four different emergency managers since 2011.
“Unfortunately, a prior Congressional hearing this week did not include top state officials, including emergency financial managers appointed by you to run the city of Flint”, the letter added.
Cummings said, however, that in all the time he served as Department of Environmental Quality chief, the topic of Flint’s water never came up in any cabinet meeting with the governor.
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Dayne Walling, Flint’s former mayor, largely avoided criticism, because all of his decisions could be overridden by Earley or other emergency managers.
