Regional EPA official resigns over Flint water crisis

Solomon continued, “We hope that this challenge will inspire a friendly competition between these wonderful campaign organizers, with the overall goal of raising as much money as possible for those affected by this awful crisis”.

Meanwhile, the head of the EPA spoke with Governor Rick Snyder and issued a letter.

A high-ranking federal official in charge of monitoring MI for the Environmental Protection Agency will resign following criticism that she was too slow to intervene on behalf of drinking water poisoned with lead in the hard-scrabble city.

Ron Fournier, the senior political columnist at the National Journal, interviewed Snyder in December and praised him for his governing style. “I am pleased that the Administration is quickly releasing funds approved by Congress to help the State of MI improve its water infrastructure”.

Notability: Zeman says he’s curious about why the public interest in the Flint Water Crisis grew so suddenly.

The water crisis started in 2014, when – as a cost saving measure – the city changed its water supply, from the city of Detroit, to the Flint River.

Yet it took more than a year and a half from the switch to Flint River water until the present day for that to work.

He says there’s a long road ahead.

Flint residents have consistently voiced frustration over the time it has taken for officials to acknowledge this crisis and respond to it. Flint is a majority-black city, and 40 percent of people live below the poverty line.

The EPA also announced it will put forward a revision to the Lead and Copper rule, based in part on the experiences in Flint. “It’s poor”, Fournier says.

Paul Mohai, a professor at the University of MI in Ann Arbor, has studied environmental burdens and their disproportionate impact on low-income and minority communities since the late 1990s.

“EPA will promptly begin sampling of lead levels and other contaminants in the city to assure that all regulatory authorities and the public have accurate and reliable information”, the emergency order said, adding that months after the agency required corrosion controls to be added to the water system and it switched its water source back from the Flint River to Lake Huron water, “underlying problems” and “fundamental deficiencies” remain.

“What’s kind of clear is that they’ve been vocalizing their concerns and the response has been rather weak”, he said.

EPA Region 5 Administrator Susan Hedman offered her resignation effective February 1, which was accepted by EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, the agency said in a statement. Hedman resigned Thursday night.

“This did not happen where prestigious white people were living”, says Taylor, whose research focuses on underdeveloped urban neighborhoods and race and class issues. Because, of course, arrogant federal regulators who think they know what’s best for us will only tie us up with their endless spools of red tape. And I’ve always believed in Flint, I’m excited about the potential, and you know, we’ve got to get this fixed. “And they’ve got to matter”.

“The fact is there is nothing, absolutely nothing, more demoralizing and disempowering to any citizen of any nation than the belief the system is rigged against them and that people in positions of power are – to use a diplomatic term of art – crooks who are stealing the future of their own people; and by the way, depositing their ill-gotten gains in ostensibly legitimate financial institutions around the world”, Kerry said.