Top Utility Official: Flint Still Lacks Water Strategy

A top official at the water utility in Flint, MI, says the city lacks a clear strategy for water treatment.

Interim Utilities Director JoLisa McDay wrote a letter this month to the U.S. EPA and Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) delineating the problem, according to Michigan Live.

"At the time of this communication, the City of Flint is still forced to apply chemicals without a written and comprehensive strategy," McDay wrote. "The City of Flint is consistently told that a plan will come from the engineering firm that will perform distribution optimization and provide an optimized corrosion control plan for the City of Flint."

The letter responded to concerns from state and federal officials about Flint’s water treatment practices. DEQ Director Keith Creagh said his agency had “serious concerns” about water treatment in Flint, with particular attention to chlorine and pH, according to a previous Michigan Live report.

"A sodium hydroxide feed system was permitted by the DEQ for this purpose," Creagh wrote in a July letter to Flint officials, referring to control of pH. "To date, it has still not been installed, and there does not appear to be any urgency on the City's part to complete this project."

U.S. EPA Water Enforcement Division Director Mark Pollins wrote a July 19 letter to Flint Mayor Karen Weaver.

"There are few things more important to running a drinking water system than maintaining adequate disinfection, especially in the summer months," he said. "Therefore, we were very concerned to learn that on Friday, July 16 the City ran out of chlorine tablets for the pellet chlorinators, resulting in no additional chlorination being available at either of Flint's reservoirs."

DEQ spokeswoman Tanya Baker said the pellet problem did not harm public health. She said that according to DEQ technicians, “the absence of the calcium hypochlorite pellets did not result in a loss of chlorine residual in the water, and therefore was not a public health concern,” according to The Detroit News.

Flint was thrust into the national news when the governor declared a state of emergency over a lead contamination crisis this year. For hundreds of Flint children, the crisis elevated the lead levels in their blood.

To read more about the problems in Flint and similar issues visit Water Online’s Drinking Water Contaminant Removal Solutions Center.