It says the state’s bungling in Flint, which is Michigan’s second-largest minority-majority city, amounts to “environmental injustice” in a place beset with poverty and slumping property values – a bipartisan indictment, with scant direct evidence, that echoes liberal charges against Snyder, his administration and the state’s Republican leadership in connection with the water crisis. The emergency manager, according to the report, unilaterally made the decision to switch the city’s water source to the Flint River. The vast bulk of the report’s findings relate to failures of the state and local agencies that had primary responsibility for Flint’s water, but the EPA probably deserves 5-10 percent of the blame.
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-The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency should respond faster and more vigorously when violations of federal drinking water regulations endanger public health and improve its rule on lead and copper contamination.
The Flint Water Plant water tower in Flint, Mich.
So, who is to blame for the poisoning of Flint’s water supply?
Michigan’s controversial emergency manager law allows state appointees to “replace local representative decision-making in Flint, removing the checks and balances and public accountability that come with public decision-making”, the report said. “Simply replacing all those … private lead services lines is about a $55 million equation, simply providing … phosphorus treatment to the river water was about $100 a day”, he says. The city returned to the Detroit water system in October, but a potential hazard remains because of damage to the water distribution system. And communities in MI would be required to follow a stricter lead action rule than what the feds have laid out.
The reports recommends the state “Consider alternatives to the current emergency manager approach”. But under short-term goals, it lists a data-sharing agreement between the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, the EPA and Virginia Tech water researcher Marc Edwards, who was key to bringing the Flint water contamination to light; and the establishment of protocols for a “drinkability declaration”.
“The Flint water crisis is a classic example of the failure of socialism-not Bernie Sanders-style socialism, which is nothing more than liberalism on steroids, but real socialism, which is the government ownership and control of the means of production”, said Roy Cordato, vice president for research at the John Locke Foundation.
Ensure that communications from all state agencies are respectful, even in the face of criticism, and sensitive to the concerns of diverse populations.
While the task force addressed past failure, the crisis has not ended.
Flint Mayor Karen Weaver listens closely as Genesee County Board of Commissioners Chairman Jamie Curtis endorses her request for a federal disaster declaration on Monday, Jan. 4, 2016, an application that officials describe as a work in progress.
In response, Adler said that “accusations for political gain do nothing to help the people of Flint, so debating over them is not something we will do”.
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As for staff members in the governor’s office, they were playing “whack-a-mole”, Kolb said.
