Watchdog: EPA delayed for 7 months in Flint water crisis

The inspector general for the Environmental Protection Agency says the agency had authority and sufficient information to issue an emergency order to protect residents of Flint, Mich., from lead-contaminated water as early as June 2015, seven months before it declared an emergency. (Associated Press)

Jeree Brown speaks at the Saints of God Church Tuesday, Oct. 18, 2016, in Flint, Mich., about how her children have been effected by the educational environment at schools in Flint. Several families have filed a class-action lawsuit against the state of Michigan and the Flint school district, saying more needs to be done to help students whose academic performance and behavior have worsened since drinking the city's lead-tainted water. (Mark Felix/The Flint Journal-MLive.com via AP)

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By Matthew Daly (Associated Press)

WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency had sufficient authority and information to issue an emergency order to protect residents of Flint, Michigan, from lead-contaminated water as early as June 2015 — seven months before it declared an emergency, the EPA’s inspector general said Thursday.

The Flint crisis should have generated “a greater sense of urgency” at the agency to “intervene when the safety of drinking water is compromised,” Inspector General Arthur Elkins said in an interim report.

Flint’s drinking water became tainted when the city began drawing from the Flint River in April 2014 to save money. The impoverished city of 100,000 north of Detroit was under state control at the time. Regulators failed to ensure water was treated properly and lead from aging pipes leached into the water supply.

Federal, state and local officials have argued over who’s to blame as the crisis continues to force residents to drink bottled or filtered water. Doctors have detected elevated levels of lead in hundreds of children.

A panel appointed by Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder concluded that the state is “fundamentally accountable” for the lead crisis because of decisions made by state environmental regulators and state-appointed emergency managers who controlled the city.

Even so, Snyder and other Republicans have faulted the EPA for a slow response.

“As Gov. Snyder has stated all along, what happened in Flint was the result of failure of government at all levels,” spokeswoman Anna Heaton said Thursday.

The report by the inspector general says officials at the EPA’s Midwest region did not issue an emergency order because they concluded that actions taken by the state prevented the EPA from doing so. The report calls that interpretation incorrect and says that under federal law, when state actions are deemed insufficient, “the EPA can and should proceed with an (emergency) order” aimed at “protecting the public in a timely manner.”

Without EPA intervention, “the conditions in Flint persisted, and the state continued to delay taking action to require corrosion control or provide alternative drinking water supplies,” the report said.