Regulators dismissed dissenters on Flint crisis

[SpartanDem]

Source: Detroit News

Michigan regulators who failed to ensure proper corrosion control chemicals were added to Flint’s drinking water spent six months dismissing evidence of their error and considered ways to muzzle the federal expert who first sounded alarms about it.

More than 24,000 pages of documents from state agencies involved in Flint water quality issues provide a clearer picture of how the crisis developed. They show water quality complaints from Flint residents, federal officials and whistle-blowers alike were challenged by state bureaucrats, who insisted on strict adherence to their interpretation of federal rules

Gov. Rick Snyder and his new Department of Environmental Quality Director Keith Creagh now say a lack of “common sense” by staffers contributed to the lead contamination of Flint’s drinking water.

“The constant second-guessing of how we interpret and implement our rules is getting tiresome,” Pat Cook, a treatment specialist at the state Department of Environmental Quality, told colleagues in a previously unreported April, 27, 2015, email after Miguel Del Toral of the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s Region 5 openly questioned their compliance with the Lead and Copper Rule.

Read more: http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/michigan/flint-water-crisis/2016/02/12/regulators-dismiss-dissenters-flint-water-crisis/80269996/

[Rybak187]

1. Yeah I saw that on the front page of the paper. Doesn't sound good for those involved.

[jwirr]

2. The wolf guarding the hen house. I wonder how many R run

states have this happening to them right now?

[houston16revival]

12. Denial of Government Services just like Christie's NJ Bridgegate

Sometimes you wonder if they aren't just experimenting

to see how far they can push the public

on environmental issues, on political issues

all for profits for themselves and their corporations

Remember there's a family behind every corporation

[ChairmanAgnostic]

3. Grover's plan to shrink government and drown it in a bathtub

A tub filled with Flint water? Now, that is really scary.

[eggplant]

4. True "lead"ership.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

10. ZING!

A duzy!

[mahatmakanejeeves]

5. "... the federal expert who first sounded alarms about it."

I'll add three paragraphs to one already quoted.

“The constant second-guessing of how we interpret and implement our rules is getting tiresome,” Pat Cook, a treatment specialist at the state Department of Environmental Quality, told colleagues in a previously unreported April, 27, 2015, email after Miguel Del Toral of the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s Region 5 openly questioned their compliance with the Lead and Copper Rule.
....

Flint residents began complaining about the brown color, rotten-egg smell and bad taste of their tap water almost immediately after the city moved off Detroit’s Lake Huron system in April 2014 and switched to the Flint River. Del Toral was the first water quality expert to suggest bigger problems might be afoot.
....

Lead 7 times the safety limit

The EPA’s Del Toral began asking the state about water testing protocols as early as February 2015, when the city told homeowner Lee-Anne Walters it detected 104 parts per billion of lead in water coming from her tap, more than seven times the federal safety action limit. She sent the results to the EPA, prompting Del Toral’s involvement. Later tests would reveal even higher levels.

By April, state environmental regulators confirmed to Del Toral that Flint was not adding corrosion treatments to the new water source but insisted they were properly enforcing federal rules. Del Toral appeared to be getting under their skin, and they discussed taking their frustrations to Department Director Dan Wyant and Office of Drinking Water and Municipal Assistance chief Liane Shekter Smith.

[SpankMe]

6. Oh, FUCK - the more I read about this, the madder I get!

There'd better fucking be prison time for a lot of people involved in the Flint water crisis.

I can't tell you how pissed off I am about this.

[vkkv]

7. Who's going to prison? ___n/t

[awoke_in_2003]

11. Probably an underling or two

None of the decision makers will.

[chapdrum]

13. Probably not the "governor"

nor his crony appointees.

Any unseemly attack on Snyder will be framed as partisan.

[houston16revival]

8. OMG The EVIL Big Government, THE FEDS

were trying to get them to adhere to rules for health and safety

And they sure didn't want any of that because THEIR FAMILIES

didn't have to drink the water!!

They should put these state bureaucrats in JAIL for a long time!!

THIS is why we have regulations and an EPA!

[former9thward]

14. The EPA Director for Region 5 resigned over this

The federal EPA ignored city complaints about the water. They dropped the ball on this also.

[blackspade]

9. Criminal behavior all around.

They should be drinking and bathing in this 'water'....