Todd Spangler

Detroit Free Press

WASHINGTON — Three Michigan members of Congress said Wednesday they will introduce legislation requiring the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to notify the public when the amount of lead in a water system requires action and a state does not act on its own.

U.S. Sens. Gary Peters and Debbie Stabenow and U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee, a Democrat from Flint Township, said they would introduce the legislation, as the crisis over high levels of lead found in Flint's tap water continues to draw international attention.

News of the legislation came as the Obama administration continued to be asked questions about EPA's role in monitoring and reacting to states responsible for overseeing federal lead regulations.

At Wednesday's press briefing, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said Obama has made clear that this is a priority for his administration and has already asked the EPA to ensure that information "critical to the health of the public" isn't kept private.

"(W)hat the president himself has identified is the need to take another look at the relationship between the EPA and those states like Michigan where it is state and local officials who are responsible for things like water quality," Earnest said.

"(If) the EPA has a legitimate concern about something, but yet it is the responsibility of state officials to administer the water system, the question then is, what does the EPA do?" Earnest said.

In Flint's case, the state Department of Environmental Quality has been criticized for not requiring corrosion-control treatments when the city switched its water supply from the Detroit water system, which supplied treated water, to the Flint River in a cost-cutting move. Experts say that without the treatments, the more corrosive river water allowed lead to leach from old service pipes throughout the city.

But EPA has been criticized as well for not moving more quickly to respond to reports of high lead levels in Flint, which it received early reports on as long ago as last Feburary, despite having emergency powers to intervene, just as it did last week with order that it would take over testing water samples and other duties in Flint.

The legislation proposed by the Michigan members of Congress appeared meant to address issues that can arise because of the relationships between the EPA and state agencies that regulate public water systems, which can operate in such a way as to keep certain information under wraps while the state reacts.

Perhaps just as important as requiring public notification in cases where federal action is required, the legislation would allow the EPA to release results of any lead monitoring performed by public water systems.

At present, the responsibility for notifying the public rests with states when tap water samples for lead reach 15 parts per billion (ppb) in the top 10% of homes sampled.

“There are a number of steps that need to be taken to both mitigate the long-term effects of lead exposure on Flint residents and ensure this type of situation never happens again," said Peters, a Democrat from Bloomfield Township. "And this legislation will make it clear the EPA can take action if a state is dragging their feet and endangering the health of its residents.”

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Even though the legislation calls on the EPA to notify residents when the 15 parts per billion action level is crossed, that may not have had an immediate impact in Flint. Monitoring samples showed levels for the top 10% of homes reaching 11 ppb last summer, though the EPA and others have raised concerns about the city's sampling techniques.

Outside researchers working in Flint also noted if residences not tested by the city that also showed extremely high lead levels had been included in the sample results as required, the action level would have been exceeded. Peters and others have called for improved sampling by water systems.

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Stabenow, a Democrat from Lansing, said the legislation, if passed, "will give the EPA clear legal authority to provide notice to the public when a state is not taking action on a public health safety crisis."



“The Flint water crisis is a failure of government, particularly at the state level, and necessary changes need to be made to existing law to ensure that another public health emergency like this never happens again,” added Kildee. “The state has a moral responsibility to act, and it must do more to help make sure that Flint families and children get the immediate and-long term resources they need to help cope with this terrible crisis.”

Contact Todd Spangler: 703-854-8947, tspangler@freepress.com or on Twitter @tsspangler



