By Julie Bosman, originally posted on October 20, 2016

CHICAGO — In a pointed rebuke to the Environmental Protection Agency, an internal watchdog concluded on Thursday that the agency should have acted more swiftly to warn residents of Flint, Mich., that their water was contaminated with lead.

The report, issued by Arthur A. Elkins Jr., the inspector general for the E.P.A., blamed the federal government for inaction in Flint, echoing the sentiments of many Republicans who have said for more than a year that the agency failed in its oversight role.

Gov. Rick Snyder of Michigan, a Republican, has said that while he accepts his share of blame for the contamination of Flint’s water, he also believes officials on the local and federal levels were partly responsible.

In an 11-page report, Mr. Elkins said that E.P.A. officials had enough information and authority to issue an emergency order under the Safe Drinking Water Act as early as June 2015. At that time, officials knew that “systems designed to protect Flint drinking water from lead contamination were not in place, residents had reported multiple abnormalities in the water, and test results from some homes showed lead levels above the federal action level.”

“These situations should generate a greater sense of urgency,” the report said. “The E.P.A. must be better prepared and able to timely intercede in public health emergencies like that which occurred in Flint.”

The E.P.A. did not issue an emergency order until Jan. 21, 2016, seven months later.

Because the E.P.A. did not intervene strongly enough, the report added, “the conditions in Flint persisted, and the state continued to delay taking action to require corrosion control or provide alternative drinking water supplies.”

The E.P.A. learned in April 2015 that Flint was not adding a chemical to its water that would prevent pipes from corroding. Miguel Del Toral, a drinking-water expert at the E.P.A., sounded the alarm about Flint’s water supply in a memo to fellow E.P.A. officials and the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality in June 2015.

But Gina McCarthy, the administrator of the E.P.A., told a Congressional committee last March that her agency had been repeatedly misled by state employees in Michigan and was not responsible for creating the lead problem. “I wish we had gone farther, I wish we had yelled from the treetops,” she told the committee, adding that state officials had agreed to add corrosion controls to Flint water but delayed in doing so.

“E.P.A. issued an order to the City of Flint and the State of Michigan as soon as it became apparent that the city and state were failing to address the serious problems with the Flint drinking water system,” Monica Lee, a spokeswoman for the E.P.A., said in a statement. She added that the E.P.A. would continue to review the inspector general’s findings.

Ms. Lee said the agency has already completed much of the training that was recommended in the report. Susan Hedman, the agency’s regional administrator overseeing Michigan, resigned earlier this year.

Karen Weaver, the mayor of Flint, said in a statement that it was “deeply troubling to learn that according to the review, the E.P.A. had reliable information indicating that the water in Flint was contaminated and residents were at risk several months before the E.P.A. took action and issued an emergency order.”

The inspector general’s office is expected to issue another report when its evaluation of the E.P.A.’s response to the water contamination in Flint is complete.

Flint’s water supply became contaminated after the city, then under the control of a state-appointed emergency manager, switched its water source to the Flint River in April 2014, partly to save money.