The more corrosive Flint River water caused lead to leach into the city’s water supply, exposing an unknown number of children to the toxin. The city returned to Detroit water in October, with financial assistance from the administration of Republican Gov. Rick Snyder, but a threat remains because of damage to the water distribution system.
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“I ask that you encourage your state agency to give this effort the highest priority, consistent with our shared commitment and partnership to address lead risks”, McCarthy said. All states do so except Wyoming, which relies on the EPA for the task, as does Washington, D.C.
The officials will visit houses that have an unacceptable lead level and will get state support for inspection of plumbing lines, bottled water, filters, blood testing and health information while regular testing continues at about 600 sites across the city, according to the statement.
Flint stopped buying Lake Huron water from Detroit and switched temporarily to the river, a move created to save money for the impoverished city of almost 100,000 until it could join a new system that also would use lake water but hadn’t finished building the infrastructure. Unsafe levels of E. coli bacteria prompted boil-water advisories.
On Tuesday, the state said water tests at hundreds of homes show 91 percent were below an important benchmark for lead.
Flint’s water contamination and officials’ months-long delay in addressing the problem has sparked outrage and drawn attention from US presidential candidates.
The Environmental Protection Agency sent letters Monday asking states to determine within 30 days that they are using correct procedures for treating and sampling water.
A judge will hear arguments in two weeks on a request to stop Flint from charging people for water during the lead crisis.
Snyder spokesman Ari Adler said that, under the loan agreement, “nothing was prohibited as this latest round of political rhetoric is suggesting”.
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“The ACLU’s fear campaign on this issue is an embarrassment”, Brad Wurfell, then-spokesman of the DEQ, wrote in response to stories by watchdog journalist Curt Guyette, who a year later was named “Journalist of the Year” by the Michigan Press Association for his revealing work on the Flint water crisis. Snyder eventually agreed roughly six months later to help Flint reconnect to a Detroit-area system after doctors reported high levels of lead in kids.
