The scientist Hedman was referring to is Miguel Del Toral, a regulations manager in the groundwater and drinking water branch of the Midwest office.
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A MI legislative committee tasked with reviewing findings and taking testimony on the mistakes that led to the lead contamination of Flint’s drinking water is holding its first meeting. “You screwed up, and you messed up people’s lives”.
The city’s water became undrinkable after it became contaminated when Flint switched from the Detroit water system to the Flint River as a cost-cutting move under the emergency manager the Snyder administration put in place. Elevated levels of lead have been found in childrens blood. He said the lack of action led to contamination, poisoning, and an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease in the city.
The crisis has drawn national attention and led to calls for Michigan Governor Rick Snyder to resign. A longshot recall effort is under way in MI for Snyder, who has been widely blamed in MI and nationally for the crisis.
Rep. Jason Chaffetz, a Utah Republican and chairman of the oversight panel, said that what happened in Flint “was totally avoidable”.
Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md. – the top Democrat on the committee, agreed the EPA should have done more, but also blamed state authorities in MI for failing to act. Earley said he was acting on advice from the state Department of Environmental Quality.
“Malfeasance at the U.S. EPA from 2001 to the present has harmed cities all over the United States”, he said. “At every stage of this process, it seems we spend more time trying to maintain state/local relationships than we do trying to protect the children”.
Hedman said she learned that Flint’s water wasn’t being treated on 30 June 2015 and agreed to a plan with MI within three weeks to remedy this, to no avail.
“Had a landlord acted toward their tenants like the EPA has acted toward the citizens of Flint”, Edwards said, “the EPA would have acted quickly to sue them”.
“I did not sit on the sidelines, and I did not downplay any concerns raised by EPA scientists or apologize for any memos they wrote – in fact, I repeatedly asked for a final memo about lead in a form that EPA could publicly release”, she said.
The U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Reform scheduled two hearings – one today featuring former Flint mayor Dayne Walling, former Flint emergency manager Darnell Earley, former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region 5 director Susan Hedman, and Virginia Tech university professor Marc Edwards.
Darnell Earley, the state-appointed emergency manager who oversaw the city when its water source was switched, told lawmakers he was “grossly misled by the experts” at the state and federal level who never told him that lead was leaching into the city’s water supply. For months after the April 2014 switch he believed information he was receiving – parts of it scientifically complex – was accurate, Earley told the committee. In his remarks, Earley said he has been “unjustly persecuted, vilified, and smeared – both personally and professionally” by allegations that he was involved in the decision to use Flint River water without protective chemicals.
Walling, Flint’s former mayor, said during his testimony: “The state’s focus on balancing the city’s books and choosing low cost over human consequences created more expensive public problems”.
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Walling also faulted the state’s emergency manager law, which placed Flint effectively under state control since November 2011.
