New water samples show lead below US limits in Ohio village

Recent test results confirm that the village’s water plant is lead free.

During the investigation, the agency looked into reasons why the agency’s top administrators took months to discover the high lead levels in Sebring. One of the employees responsible for sending laboratory test results failed to ensure that data was provided to the field office to help them conduct their review.

The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency fired two employees in its Columbus office on Wednesday, and demoted a third employee in the EPA’s northeastern district over lead contamination in the Mahoning County village of Sebring.

That employee was sacked for nonperformance, the Ohio EPA reported.

That’s according to Village Manager Richard Giroux, who says most of that amount has been spent on engineering fees since January 21, when Giroux sent out a notice advising children and pregnant women not to drink or use the water due to high levels of lead detected in samples from seven homes.

Spangler was sacked for not properly managing Baughman and “not providing appropriate corrective counseling or progressive discipline, despite being instructed to do so”, OEPA said.

The EPA is not required to notify the public that drinking water could be contaminated with lead, but residents and government officials were outraged that neither the system nor the agency told people about the risk.

Rice was demoted for failing to elevate the Sebring issue to Butler or other senior OEPA management when her office informed village officials December 3; and she should have notified OEPA brass sooner, OEPA said.

“Since Flint has lead service lines, we understand some citizen-requested lead sampling is exceeding the Action Level, and the source of drinking water will be changing again in 2016, so to start a Corrosion Control Study now doesn’t make sense”, Crooks wrote in the email exchanges.

Of the more than 900 water samples tested by the Ohio EPA, the Agency said only 40 were above the allowable limit – which suggests the EPA may have been trying to avoid another Flint scandal.