“At some point you can only take so much”, Gov. Snyder said in a defining moment at the Congressional hearing in Washington this morning regarding the Flint Water Crisis.
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Snyder also faulted the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality and says that he took “immediate action” once informed.
“The questions I should have asked. the answers I should have demanded. how I could have prevented this”.
Though EPA water expert Miguel Del Toral noted as early as February 2015 that Flint’s water supply was no longer being treated for lead and that the tests showing the water was safe were inaccurate, it wasn’t until November that the EPA shared that information with the public, though the agency privately expressed concerns to MI officials in the interim months. Government agencies and charitable groups have sent thousands of bottles of water to Flint and doctors are monitoring the health of its 100,000 residents, more than half of them black and many of them impoverished. “I’ve had enough of your phony apologies”, Rep. Matt Cartwright said.
Cartwright suggested Snyder’s explanations that government at all levels failed Flint residents creates a new excuse for abusive husbands, according to an online video recording of the hearing.
Snyder eventually switched Flint back to Detroit’s water supply in October 2015 for about $12 million.
Cartwright was one of many Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee who called on Snyder to resign.
Chaffetz and other Republicans complained that while Snyder has apologized for his role in the Flint crisis, McCarthy and other EPA have repeatedly denied responsibility. You just don’t get it, ‘ Representative Jason Chaffetz, a Utah Republican, told EPA administrator Gina McCarthy.
“There are two basic possiblities: Either your chief of staff told you about these returns and you did nothing or he didn’t tell you and you are an absentee governor”, Cummings said.
He began finding high levels of lead in the Washington area in 2003, and was the co-author of a study six years later that estimated 42,000 children were exposed to poisoned water between 2000 and 2004.
“The law failed, administrator”, Chaffetz said, in reference to McCarthy’s defense.
Another representative, Elijah Cummings, told Mr Snyder he was responsible for the contamination of the city’s water supply and that he would likely be subject to criminal charges if he was running a business. But she says she did get this out of her trip to DC: She got to take a real bath at the hotel, and drink water right out of the tap. “If you’re going to do the courageous thing, you too should step down”.
In January, the EPA issued an order requiring MI and Flint address the water issues in Flint.
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“We were strong-armed, we were misled, we were kept at arm’s length, we couldn’t do our jobs effectively”, McCarthy responded. Agreeing that more should have been done at the federal level, Cummings put the majority of the blame on Snyder’s “vindictive administration” that acted with “utter incompetence”. He also praised EPA Region 5 Regulations Manager Miguel Del Toral, for testing the water in Flint and alerting his colleagues that there was a problem. Lead exposure can cause learning disabilities and behavioural problems in children.
