|
 Susan Hedman, the second official to resign since the crisis
unfolded, had played down a memo by an EPA employee that said tests
had shown high levels of lead in the city's water, telling Flint and
Michigan administrators it was only a draft report.
Hedman's resignation will take effect Feb. 1, the EPA said. Before
the agency's announcement on Hedman, the White House said President
Barack Obama will ensure officials will be held accountable if any
wrongdoing is found.
The EPA on Thursday issued an emergency order requiring Michigan and
the city of Flint to take immediate steps after determining that
their response to the crisis had been "inadequate to protect human
health."
Under the direction of a state-appointed emergency manager, Flint, a
working class mostly African-American city of 100,000 north of
Detroit, switched water supplies to the Flint River in 2014, to save
money. The river is known locally as a dumping ground.
The more corrosive river water, which was not treated, caused more
lead to leach from the city's aging water pipes than the Detroit
water the city had tapped previously.
 Complaints about the water began within a month of the change, but
officials did not take steps to remedy the situation until October
2015 after tests showed elevated levels of lead in some tap water in
the city and in some children. Lead is a neurotoxin that can damage
brains and cause other health problems.
The city switched back to Detroit water in mid October, but the
contamination continued.
The Flint crisis pushed EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy on Thursday
to issue a new policy to elevate any issues that appear to be a
substantial threat to public health, or that "other authorities
appear to be unable to address."
"Our strength can become a weakness if we interpret our
responsibility as ending with simple technical compliance," McCarthy
said in a memo to all EPA staff.
The EPA's inspector general agreed to evaluate the Midwest office's
public water system supervision program and its implementation of
its state oversight.
Representative Jason Chaffetz, chairman of the House Oversight and
Government Reform Committee, said "The EPA is rife with incompetence
and Region 5 is no exception. Mismanagement has plagued the region
for far too long and Ms. Hedman’s resignation is way overdue."
White House spokesman Josh Earnest, noting that the Justice
Department was investigating the contamination of Flint's water
supply, told reporters that Obama will make sure that EPA officials
are held responsible for any errors that may be uncovered.
By the end of next week, Michigan would have access to $80 million
for water infrastructure funding agreed to in last month's
bipartisan budget, Obama told a group of mayors at the White House.
[to top of second column] |
GOV. SNYDER TO BE INVITED TO TESTIFY
Michigan Governor Rick Snyder and other officials will be called to
testify next month to a congressional panel. U.S. Representative
Brenda Lawrence, a Democrat, requested a Feb. 3 hearing of the House
Oversight and Government Reform Committee last week, said
spokeswoman Tracy Manzer. The invitation will be specifically for
the governor and he cannot send a representative on his behalf,
Manzer said.
However, Republicans on the committee said nothing about the hearing
was set in stone and it was not yet on the committee's website
calendar. Details being discussed about a hearing on Flint "are
entirely premature," said a spokesman for Republicans on the
committee who did not want to be named. "There are no confirmed
details at this time, particularly with respect to a date or witness
invitations,” the spokesman said.
Dan Wyant, former director of Michigan's Department of Environmental
Quality, are among the other invitees. Wyant resigned in December
over the growing crisis in Flint.
The hearing will "identify precisely what went wrong in the process
and to ensure that those who were responsible are to be held
accountable and that this never happens again," Manzer said.
Snyder, a Republican, has rejected calls from critics for his
resignation over the crisis. He asked the Michigan state legislature
this week to approve $28 million to assist Flint and said there
would be additional funding requests. The Michigan House approved
the funding unanimously on Wednesday and the bill was in the Senate
on Thursday.
In recent weeks, the Michigan Department of Health and Human
Services also has said that it has seen an increase in Legionnaires'
disease cases in the county that includes Flint covering the period
in which the river water was the primary source. It could not
conclude if the cases were related to the water switch. A report
released on Thursday found 87 Legionnaires' cases in the county from
June 2014 through October, including nine deaths.
(Reporting Timothy Gardner, David Shepardson, Ayesha Rascoe and
Roberta Rampton in Washington, Fiona Ortiz in Chicago and David
Bailey in Minneapolis; Editing by Frances Kerry and Bernard Orr)
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