Public healthFBI launches investigation of lead poisoning of Flint’s drinking water
The FBI has launched an investigation into the contamination of drinking water in Flint, Michigan, which has left Flint children and other residents poisoned by lead. In a hearings on the Hill yesterday, lawmakers from both parties described what is happening in Flint as a “a man-made public health catastrophe.” Flint’s drinking water became contaminated with lead in April 2014 after a state-appointed emergency manager ordered city officials temporarily to switch the city’s water source from Lake Huron water treated by the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department to water from the Flint River, treated at the Flint water treatment plant. The order by the state-appointed emergency manager was part of the state’s cost-cutting measures.
Replacing damaged water pipe // Source: ntsb.gov
The FBI has launched an investigation into the contamination of drinking water in Flint, Michigan, which has left Flint children and other residents poisoned by lead. In a hearings on the Hill yesterday, lawmakers from both parties described what is happening in Flint as a “a man-made public health catastrophe.” Gina Balaya, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Detroit, told the Detroit Free Press that federal prosecutors are “working with a multi-agency investigation team on the Flint water contamination matter, including the FBI, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, EPA’s Office of Inspector General, and EPA’s Criminal Investigation Division.”
On 5 January the office of U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade said that it was assisting the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in a Flint drinking water investigation. At the time Balaya would not say whether the investigation was civil or criminal.
On Monday Balaya told reporters about the involvement of the FBI and other agencies in the investigation of potential criminal wrongdoing. Balaya revealed the involvement of the FBI when she was asked about the fact that the EPA was leading the investigation despite the fact that the regional director of the EPA resigned over the Flint drinking water crisis.
Jill Washburn, a spokeswoman for the FBI in Detroit, confirmed to the Free Press on Tuesday that the FBI is involved in the investigation. He did not provide any details except to say that “Our role is to determine whether or not there have been federal violations.”
Flint’s drinking water became contaminated with lead in April 2014 after a state-appointed emergency manager ordered city officials temporarily to switch the city’s water source from Lake Huron water treated by the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department to water from the Flint River, treated at the Flint water treatment plant.
The order by the state-appointed emergency manager was part of the state’s cost-cutting measures.
The director of the state Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) resigned in December.
The switch to the Flint River as a water source, and the failure to add needed corrosion-control chemicals to the corrosive Flint River water, resulted in massive lead contamination of drinking and bathing water for households.
The Free Press notes that for months, state officials rejected or downplayed reports of lead in the city’s water and a spike in the lead levels in the blood of Flint children. The state finally acknowledged the problem on 1 October.
The state has appointed a task force to investigate the scandal, as has Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette.
Congressional hearing
Yesterday (Wednesday), the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Oversight and Government Reform began its own investigation of the Flint’s water crisis, with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle calling it a failure of government on all levels: local, state, and federal.
CNN reports that during the emotionally charged hearing, lawmakers yelled at officials and Flint residents in the audience sobbed.
In his opening remarks, committee chairman Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) introduced several documents suggesting EPA officials had not acted quickly enough in Flint in the face of numerous warnings, some of them from inside the agency.
He did not limit his critiques for those in federal agencies. He also called out Darnell Earley, who was Flint’s state-appointed emergency manager between 2013 and 2015, and who ordered the city to switch its source of water in order to comply with the governor’s cost-cutting plan. Earley was invited last week to testify before the committee, but told the panel on Monday night he would not and his lawyer refused a subpoena issued Tuesday.
Earley’s attorney, A. Scott Bolden, told CNN on Tuesday that the subpoena “borders on nonsensical” and said his client needed more time to prepare and travel to the nation’s capital.
Chaffetz vowed that Earley will come to Washington and “do a deposition later this month.”
“We’re calling on the U.S. Marshals to hunt (Earley) down and give him that subpoena,” the Chaffetz said.
Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Maryland), the committee’s ranking Democrat, thanked Chaffetz for arranging the hearing, but criticized him for not calling on “the most critical witness of all,” Michigan Governor Rick Snyder, to testify. The Republican governor appointed Earley as the city emergency manager, and because the state had taken control of Flint due to the city’s budget problems, the state-ordered measures caused the lead contamination in the first place, and the state was in charge throughout the crisis.
“We need to determine how children in the United States of America, in the year 2016, have been exposed to drinking water poisoned by lead,” Cummings implored. “And not by accident. By the actions of their own government.”
