test test The Environmental Protection Agency must strengthen its oversight of state drinking water programs to avoid a repeat of what happened in Flint, Mich., where a sluggish federal reaction meant residents were exposed to lead-tainted water for far too long, an agency watchdog said in a report Thursday.
“While oversight authority is vital, its absence can contribute to a catastrophic situation,” EPA Inspector General Arthur A. Elkins said in releasing the findings, which found that “while Flint residents were being exposed to lead in drinking water, the federal response was delayed, in part, because the EPA did not establish clear roles and responsibilities, risk assessment procedures, effective communication and proactive oversight tools.” The EPA was not alone in its failure to address the crisis that crippled a city of nearly 100,000 residents, including exposing thousands of young children to lead.
In particular, state officials failed to implement proper treatments after Flint switched drinking water sources in early 2014, and for months ignored warnings from local residents about the deteriorating water quality.
But the EPA’s inspector general found that federal government deserved significant blame for not more quickly using its enforcement authority to make sure that state and local officials were complying with the Safe Drinking Water Act, as well as with federal rules that mandate testing for lead.
Only then will we as a nation be able to fully protect the potential of our children from this preventable neurotoxin."
This report indicated the potenial for serious human health risks and recommended potential EPA actions."
Even then, the agency’s inspector general found, months passed before the EPA took action to address the growing crisis.
In Thursday’s report, the EPA’s inspector general offered nine recommendations, including putting in place controls to make sure states and localities are complying with lead testing regulations and properly treating water source.
Only later, after Hanna-Attisha detailed skyrocketing blood lead levels in some local children and reporters continued to publicize the problems with the water, did governments begin to take more aggressive action.
The Michigan governor faced calls to resign, even as he apologized for the crisis, telling Flint residents in one State of the State address that “government failed you at the federal, state and local level.” “People have realized they’ve been lied to, and EPA knew about this, and the state knew about this,” Virginia Tech engineering professor Marc Edwards, a national authority on municipal water quality whose tests exposed the extent of Flint’s lead contamination, told the Post in early 2016.