EPA refused an October 2015 emergency petition pleading with the agency to “take all actions necessary to abate the endangerment presented by lead in Flint’s drinking water and to inform Flint residents about the potential hazards of drinking the City’s tap water”.
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Tens of thousands of dollars is on its way to help the people of Flint.
Rep. Elijah Cummings (Md.), the committee’s top Democrat, told Hedman he was glad she resigned. The memo noted that recent water samples showed elevated lead levels in Flint homes.
Greimel and Dillon also claim Snyder’s office might have violated Michigan’s procurement laws because his office didn’t engage in a competitive bid process to hire the lawyers.
Earley said he was given a variety of explanations for coliform bacteria detected in the city’s water in 2014.
Earley told the committee that he and other Flint leaders “were all totally dependent” on analysis and expertise provided by state and federal officials, Earley testified, adding that “it would have been unreasonable…to reject their guidance and attempt to make independent rulings on a highly sophisticated and scientific subject matter”.
Representatives for Gov. Rick Snyder, Lt. Gov. Brian Calley and the state treasurer abstained from voting because the Snyder administration’s role in the water crisis is under investigation.
“I do believe we could have done more”, Hedman said under harsh questioning.
According to the crisis takeaway document: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region 5 was aware of dangerously high levels of lead in Flint drinking water in April 2015, yet failed to act until January 2016 when they were forced to intervene.
But he told the committee that he had family in Flint, has attended church services there and blamed “experts” who he said misled him in his decision making.
“And they’ve never apologized for what they did in Washington, D.C., and incredibly to this day they have not apologized for what they did in Flint”.
The water crisis has drawn national attention and led to heavy criticism of Snyder, with some voters mounting a petition drive to have him recalled.
“Flint’s crisis is not rooted in a failure of leadership, but rather resulted from improper treatment of the water – an issue which fell squarely to MDEQ and EPA”, he said. But she said the EPA also missed opportunities.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will hear Tuesday from former Flint Mayor Dayne Walling, and former Flint Emergency Manager Darnell Earley on how the city’s drinking water became contaminated with lead.
“I did not sit on the sidelines”, she emphasized.
The switch from Detroit water to the Flint River occurred in 2014 under Earley’s direction.
The most shocking moment of the hearing came when Chaffetz produced a memo between officials, in which one employee wrote “Perhaps she already knows all this but I’m not so sure Flint is the community we want to go out on a limb for”.
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Edwards, a professor at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University who is credited with helping expose the Flint water crisis, ridiculed Hedman’s statement. “Flint residents had lost trust in governmental institutions – and the false allegations about me gave the people of Flint less reason to trust EPA”. “[Not] at any point and time during the preparation for the switch did I receive any information that would even remotely indicate that the use of the Flint River was unsafe in any way”.
