EPA says state, city lag in response to Flint crisis

Federal regulators say state and city officials still aren’t doing enough to fix problems that caused lead contamination in the drinking water of Flint, Michigan.

He noted that both issues relate to “key provisions” of the order, and that the city can not switch away from the treated water it’s now purchasing from Detroit’s system to another water source “unless and until the current system is fully optimized and running properly, and the city demonstrates it has the technical, managerial and financial capacity to operate the public water system in compliance with” federal law and regulations on clean drinking water.

In a letter Friday, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency highlighted concerns to state and city officials.

Flint has missed by two weeks a deadline for showing that its water system has enough competent staffers, Pollins said in a letter to Keith Creagh, director of the state Department of Environmental Quality, and other officials.

Pollins did praise the “positive steps” that MI has taken to improve transparency, including an updated website “that makes it much easier to track the status of actions on each provision of the order”. It also wants confirmation that officials have identified all areas of Flint with elevated blood-lead levels.

Flint did not treat the river water with anti-corrosion chemicals, allowing the corrosive river water to scrape lead from aging pipes.

Alongside the “inadequate” staffing situation, Pollins said state and city had failed to put together a proper plan to deal with the crisis since federal intervention in January. But unlike many other US cities that shifted decades ago to pipes made of copper or other metals, Chicago required the use of lead service lines until they were banned nationwide in 1986. In a statement, a spokesman said “Chicago’s water is safe and exceeds federal, state and industry standards”.

“We’re marching to keep the pressure on, because if we keep our mouths shut and we go away we know these pipes will remain the same”, said Miller.

The first: A “comprehensive and interactive” corrosion control plan for the water the city is now sending to people’s homes.

Flint resident Jacqueline Johnson cries while praying before a mile-long march to the City of Flint Water Plant, Friday, Feb. 19, 2016 in Flint., Mich. The march was organized in part by the Rev. Jesse Jackson to highlight the push for more action on the city’s crisis with lead-tainted water.

In a story February 18 about state aid going to Flint, Michigan, for water pipelines, The Associated Press reported erroneously that funding would pay for the replacement of pipes in several hundred homes.

The correspondence also shows the state is looking to replace all of the lead service lines in Flint, a key demand of the city’s mayor, Karen Weaver, who has requested $55m from Congress to achieve this task.