Top EPA Official Warns That Flint's 'Systemic Issues' Go Beyond Crisis

The U.S. EPA’s top official urged brass in Michigan to address the “systemic issues” that could prevent Flint, MI, from providing clean drinking water to residents in the long term.

According to The Washington Post, in a letter to Flint Mayor Karen Weaver and Michigan Governor Rick Snyder, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy detailed a host of problems that federal regulators had documented in recent months.

“Our own observations and other technical advice we have received have identified a number of significant challenges to the long-term goal of reliable and sustainable clean drinking water for the city of Flint,” McCarthy wrote in the letter. “These challenges go well beyond the immediate crisis problems we have all been working so hard to address.”

McCarthy wrote that Flint’s water-distribution system is “too large for both the current and the projected water demand in the city.”

The letter also stated that city leaders must provide “stable, reliable and quick” support to operate a functioning water system.

"Safe drinking water cannot be reliably achieved without tackling these problems, which will require the joint, sustained effort of both the city and the state," McCarthy wrote.

McCarthy cited a recent issue with adding chlorine to the water system to maintain adequate corrosion and pathogen control.

"In a well-performing system, these issues would be anticipated and addressed as a matter of routine, rather than on a crisis basis," she stated. "Issues such as corrosivity and residual chlorine are fundamental elements of a properly operating system. The fact that we recently had to work with the city and state to address this problem on an urgent basis demonstrates, more powerfully than any report can, that there are basic operational deficits for personnel, contracting and funding that are essential to resolve."

Weaver, in a statement obtained by the Detroit Free Press, said McCarthy's letter confirms what she and others in the city had already been saying.

“We not only need new pipes, we need new infrastructure," Weaver said. "The water system in the City of Flint is old, antiquated and too large to adequately serve the city’s current population, which is much smaller than it was decades ago when the water system was put in place. Our city needs a complete infrastructure update to address these issues now and in the long term."

The lack of adequate staffing is the result of "the aftermath of the state-appointed emergency manager’s effort to cut costs, which resulted in a drastic reduction in staff at the water plant and beyond," Weaver said.

According to an Associated Press article appearing on Fox 12 Online, Snyder spokeswoman Anna Heaton said that the letter was being reviewed, and that Michigan is supporting Flint until the city chooses a new water source and how it will be managed.

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