According to local estimates, up to 1,000 undocumented immigrants in Flint are opting not to receive any type of assistance in wake of the water emergency, which has exposed the entire population to toxic levels of lead, reports ABC affiliate WJRT. The federal government denied a request for additional aid through a disaster declaration, saying the program is designed for natural disasters and therefore not appropriate for the city’s drinking water crisis. In Flint, a city that’s almost 60 percent black and where more than 42 percent of residents live below the poverty line, officials switched to a cheaper water source.
Advertisement
“…To our knowledge, the State has complied with every recent demand made by the USEPA”, Creagh wrote.
“EPA has determined that the City of Flint’s and the State of Michigan’s responses to the drinking water crisis in Flint have been inadequate to protect the public health and that these failures continue”, the order read.
– Two employees with the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality have been suspended in light of the Flint water criisis. State lawmakers are working to approve $28 million more for Flint. The water was not properly treated to keep lead from pipes from leaching into the supply.
Creagh also said the order was filled with “factual omissions and legal errors”.
“In a nut shell, I’m making sure that we are meeting all EPA compliance, all department of public health compliance in our water treatment”, Illinois American Water’s Quality Supervisor Pamela Goede said.
As the state failed to act despite concerns from critics, the crisis has led to calls for Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder’s resignation.
The unnamed DEQ employees who were suspended Friday pending investigations work in the agency’s drinking water division, state spokesman Kurt Weiss said.
A top regional EPA official resigned this week in connection with Flint’s lead contamination. “Some DEQ actions lacked common sense and that resulted in this awful tragedy in Flint”.
But high levels of lead aren’t unique to Flint.
This so-called distortion of facts comes by cities using water testing methods that the Environmental Protection Agency have classified as being misleading.
Experts also say that Flint’s lead service pipes, which connect homes to the wider water system, must eventually be replaced because they have aged the equivalent of 10 years in 18 months.
But it’s impossible to say long it will take before the water is safe enough to drink without the use of expensive filters, which the state has been distributing to residents along with bottled water. The advisory group said its recommendations are more detailed and comprehensive than what the EPA ordered, and Snyder said officials would “move as quickly as possible to determine the best way to achieve the results”.
Advertisement
Messages left with Snyder’s office and the EPA were not immediately returned.
