EPA’s IG: Agency acted too slowly on #FlintWaterCrisis
Captain Obvious could not be reached for comment
According to its mission statement, the Environmental Protection Agency acts is protect human health and to safeguard the natural environment.
However, since its formation in 1970, the statement may have secretly been amended to include that the agency must also want to go out on a limb for that area. It is at least one explanation for the EPA Inspector General indicating that the organization acted too slowly to address the lead contamination discovered in the Flint, Michigan water supply.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had the authority and information to take decisive action on the lead contamination of Flint’s drinking water in June of 2015 — seven months before it actually acted, a federal watchdog said Thursday.
The Office of Inspector General for the EPA said the agency should have issued an emergency order to protect Flint residents from the contaminated water in the summer of 2015. The EPA didn’t issue such an order until Jan. 21 of this year.
“These situations should generate a greater sense of urgency,” said EPA Inspector General Arthur Elkins. “Federal law provides the EPA with emergency authority to intervene when the safety of drinking water is compromised. Employees must be knowledgeable, trained and ready to act when such a public health threat looms.”
The report is the harshest official rebuke by a federal agency to date of the EPA’s response to the lead contamination crisis, amid ongoing civil and criminal investigations. Susan Hedman, the EPA’s Region 5 administrator, resigned over the Flint crisis, effective last Feb. 1.
Ooooh…a “harsh rebuke”. That will certainly sting the agency, which has felt quite free to be the enforcing arm compelling companies to comply with insane regulations related to climate change and broadened the terminology of “navigable waters” to the point farmers get fined for putting in stock ponds on their property.
Certainly, Susan Hedman will face jail time…just as Eric Holder did for “Fast and Furious”, Lois Lerner did for the I.R.S. scandal involving political man-handling of conservative groups’ applications for non-profit tax status, and as did the EPA crew responsible for the Animas River debacle.
Never mind.
The government elites will always take care of their own. Proof for this assertion includes the fact that a Republican on the Michigan legislative committee looking into the situation, Sen. Jim Stamas, touts that the group’s 34-page report on the man-made disaster recommends bigger bureaucracy instead of punishment.
…Stamas writes the report is focused on solutions, not placing blame, but it does take a hard stance on the state’s emergency manager law. It calls for major reform, writing the state should repeal the current one-person emergency manager and replace it with a team of three experts, if any city or school district should fall under state control.
The committee chairman also calls for stricter safeguards within Michigan’s Lead and Copper Rule writing: “One of the primary causes of the Flint water crisis was a poorly written, interpreted, and applied Lead Copper Rule. This rule, which was promulgated by the federal government and adopted in Michigan, is simply insufficient to protect Michiganders.”
EPA: Too big to fail with people too powerful to jail, despite completely deviating from its original mission.
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
Oh those dastardly IG’s! Well, obama and hillary know how to handle them! When one went after the obama’s close friend, NBA player and now the mayor of Sacremento and exposed his corruption, the obama’s had the IG fired. When hillary became the SoS the IG retired and guess what? She didn’t bother to hire a new one for her entire stay!!!!! But hey, that’s not corruption, is it? Is there anything left from our old moral government?
“Any man who believes he can be happy and prosperous by letting the government take care of him,better take a closer look at the American Indian.” Henry Ford
EPA = Weaponized by Obama. I’m sure Madame President will fix that.
And this would trouble a Hildebeeste voter like you why?
I’d rather have a limb amputated than vote for Hillary Clinton. While we appreciate this further evidence of your stupidity, it wasn’t necessary, a clear case of overkill.
This is racist!! How dare you even imply the EPA is not the greatest organization since the beginning of time. How dare you. Do you have no shame?
It’s not outlandish to postulate that the cause of this level of performance is the same thing which will prevent it from ever being improved; and that is, identity politics. Merit? What’s that? They’re all Affirmative Action hires, which places them beyond serious criticism, because … err … ahhh … oh right—racism! And sexism!
One solution (which of course will never happen) might be to eliminate career bureaucrats entirely, and make them all elected positions; like school committees, but with better pay scales. Ideally, elected positions with term limits. The jobs—everything from the Post Office to the ATF—would then all be done by, essentially, perpetual amateurs … but it’s not obvious that that wouldn’t be an improvement.
Naturally, the New American Oligarchy will never consider such a thing.
Well I favor just making it a whole lot easier to fire and replace federal workers rather than making every last job an electable position, though I might consider it for the top positions in each of the agencies. It’s one of the reasons I was disappointed to see Scott Walker knocked out so early in the primaries. I’m sure he would have done a lot to bust up the federal unions which in turn would have done quite a lot to clean up the fraud, waste, and abuse that takes place at the federal level.
Dead on, re: SCott Walker.
They had to wait until they had a republican to blame. Flint’s a UAW city and it took them a while to find a republican someplace in the chain. Eventually, they faked a line clear to the nearest republican, the governor. Who, if a republican, is supposed to be in charge of the city water system.
What happened to all the money Flint had from taxes? Who authorized the budget and where did it go? How did they end up bankrupt? Flint has had democrat mayors since 1974.
How on earth democrats continue to get away with this kind of bs is beyond me.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/261548/democrats-filthy-flint-water-daniel-greenfield
Mayor Dayne Walling, a Democrat, led a cheerful countdown at the Flint water treatment plant to press the button moving the city over to river water. Walling and Darnell Earley, the Democratic emergency manager, even raised glasses in a toast and drank the water to show that it was safe.
“It’s a historic moment for the city of Flint to return to its roots and use our own river as our drinking water supply,” Walling said. “The water quality speaks for itself.”
Flint’s city council had voted in favor of the move 7-1. Despite claims about the power of the emergency manager, the switch could not have gone forward without that vote.
Dayne Walling August 5, 2009[9] November 9, 2015
The problem isn’t the river water. I used to live about six miles downstream from the intake plant. There was an ornamental walkway through a park along the river. Plants were lush down to and in the water. Ducks and fish–our town had a walleye festival–did just fine.
Problem was that lead pipes accumulate a neutral coating of some kind which prevents acidic water from leaching lead from the pipes. But, on the EPA suggestion, the city did not add the $100/day buffer which would have prevented the leaching. The brown crap was from old seals which also failed due to the unbuffered water. One Flint guy said, after being told to wait a year for the additive, “I wish I’d stood on my desk and yelled.” A number of folks at the city and state level are indicted for, among other things, destroying evidence. No word on any feds suffering a sanction. Sort of like that Colorado river.