New director faults DEQ over Flint water crisis Jim Lynch, The Detroit News
State officials should have applied corrosion controls when Flint first started
drawing water from the Flint River, but they at least should have acted after
an initial six-month round of testing showed high levels of lead, Department
of Environmental Quality Director Keith Creagh told The Detroit News. Instead,
officials believed they should wait for a second six-month testing period,
even though the anti-corrosive agents cost less than $140 a day or about
$50,000 a year, according to a Flint contractor's water quality report in March.
'At worst, after six months, some bells and whistles should have gone off at
DEQ and EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) to say we should have expedited
treatment,' Creagh said. 'We should have been more aggressive. Flint switched
from Detroit's system to the more corrosive Flint River water in April 2014;
the city returned to Detroit water in October 2015. Creagh said two top
officials in the the Office of Drinking Water and Municipal Assistance are
responsible
for the disputed interpretation of the federal Lead and Copper Rule '
determining two six-month periods of water testing were necessary before a
decision
on the use of corrosion controls could be made. Both officials have been
reassigned and kept away from Flint water issues, he said. In addition, several
of their subordinates have been steered away from Flint duties. But to date,
the city's water crisis had not resulted in any terminations. That failure
to include corrosion controls was the first domino in the city's health crisis,
said a water expert. 'We can say with high confidence, that if the (corrosion
controls) had been used, nearly all of the problems that have occurred ' from
lead to leaks to possibly Legionnaires' disease ' would not have occurred,'
said Marc Edwards, a professor of civil engineering at Virginia Tech
University, whose testing helped uncover high levels of lead in Flint's water.
In
mid-October 2015, then-DEQ Director Dan Wyant admitted the agency
misinterpreted what it considers a poorly worded federal regulations on toxic
metals
in water. At the time, Wyant reassigned Office of Drinking Water and Municipal
Assistance Chief Lianne Shekter-Smith to another job. Creagh said Stephen
Busch, the office's Lansing and Jackson district supervisor, has also been
reassigned. Investigations are ongoing and all discipline options remain on
the table, said Creagh, the former head of the state Department of Natural
Resources who took over the top post at DEQ three weeks ago. Wyant and
department
spokesman Brad Wurfel resigned in late December after an independent task force
appointed by Gov. Rick Snyder blamed a 'culture of passivity' in the DEQ
that primarily resulted in Flint's contaminated water crisis. Creagh admitted
common sense should have led DEQ officials to recognize the dangers inherent
in Flint's water switch. He said wording in the Lead and Copper Rule can be
vague and that the interpretation of Office of Drinking Water officials was
technically correct. But even with that interpretation, he said, DEQ should
have taken action in late December 2014. A review of internal communications
from other DEQ staffers show other employees offered similar positions on the
requirements for corrosion controls in federal law. Creagh defended the
employees
beneath Shekter-Smith and Busch. 'That is what people lower in the chain of
command were led to believe by their program experts,' he said. 'Technical
expertise lies with the division chief on technical issues. As a division
director, you're supposed to have enough experience and enough sensitivity to
understand the complexities of an issue. Several employees of the Office of
Drinking Water are named as defendants in a pair of class action lawsuits
announced
this week that also target Snyder and the state of Michigan. Glenn Daigger, a
civil and environmental engineering professor at the University of Michigan,
said the idea of including corrosion controls in a water system as large as
Flint's is fairly rudimentary. 'That is absolutely something that should be
provided,' he said. Among the earliest and most consistent critics of the
state's actions in Flint has been the American Civil Liberties Union of
Michigan.
Communications Director Darrell Dawsey pointed to General Motors Co. s decision
in October 2014 ' more than two months before DEQ's test results came back
' to stop using water from the river at its Flint Engine Operations plant.
'Common sense seems to suggest that if General Motors doesn't want to use the
water because it's corroding the engines, then maybe someone might want to ask
themselves if children should be drinking it,' Dawsey said. For months,
pressure on the Snyder administration has slowly ratcheted up as residents,
elected officials and news outlets have parsed through the state government's
actions in Flint. The city's move to the Flint River for water came while under
the control of a Snyder-appointed emergency manager and has led to questioning
of whether the Flint River ever was a suitable source for drinking water. Like
Virginia Tech's Edwards, Wayne State University Professor Shawn McElmurry
said the Flint River could have worked as a water source had the state treated
it properly from the outset. 'River water has been used by many municipalities
as a water source,' said McElmurry, an associate professor of civil and
environmental engineering. 'There's no reason Flint River water could not have
been treated properly and used safely. JLynch@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (313) 222-2034
