Todd Spangler and Maureen Groppe

Detroit Free Press and USA Today

WASHINGTON — Congressional interrogators on Wednesday sharply criticized state and federal regulators for failing to react to warnings of rising lead levels in Flint's tap water, chastising Michigan officials for not taking adequate steps to protect public health and blasting the federal EPA for not forcing the state's hand sooner.

Calling the situation in Flint "a failing at every level" of government, U.S. House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, directed most of his criticism at the Environmental Protection Agency, saying there have been "festering" problems there for years and disputing Deputy Assistant Administrator Joel Beauvais' contention that responding to the Flint water crisis was the agency's highest priority.

"What evidence can you give to us that this is a high priority?" Chaffetz said, shouting at times during the hearing to make his point. "It took a year from the first (reports of high lead levels) ... before EPA issued a directive" ordering the state to implement recommendations in Flint.

"The public has a right to be outraged. Outrage doesn't even begin to cover it," said Chaffetz.

Several other officials, meanwhile, raised questions about the state Department of Environmental Quality's failure as the agency primarily responsible for Flint's water to require corrosion control treatments that could have stopped the problems before they began as apparently required under federal law.

"My home used to be a place of peace and comfort for my family," said LeeAnne Walters, a Flint resident and mother whose refusal to accept assurances that the water was safe helped lead to revelations about the city's water supply. "That was taken from me. ... Now my home is known as Ground Zero."

It eventually led to tests showing significantly higher blood-lead levels in children and, despite earlier assurances from the DEQ that the water was safe, tests showing increased lead levels in residents' tap water. In January, President Barack Obama declared a state of emergency in Flint. Wednesday's hearing marked the first congressional foray into the widening controversy over what has become a public health crisis in Flint, where it has become clear that a failure to require corrosion controls when the city switched its water supply to the Flint River in 2014 allowed lead to leach from old service pipes into residents' taps.

High levels of lead can cause hypertension and other issues for adults but can lead to far more serious problems for children, including development delays, learning difficulties, irritability, weight loss and hearing loss. In recent months, Flint switched back to Lake Huron water, began adding corrosion controls and started handing out bottled water and filters in the city, but new DEQ Director Keith Creagh said he still could not "guarantee at this point that the water is safe to drink."

Earley's lawyer says he'll accept subpoena if issued

Wednesday's hearing also came as another committee, the House Energy and Commerce Committee and Chairman Fred Upton, R-St. Joseph, sent emails to EPA and DEQ asking for answers to several questions linked to the crisis.

In their testimony, both Creagh and Beauvais talked of the government response in Flint in recent weeks, when supplies, testing kits and more resources have been brought to bear on the problem. But the hearing made clear that there remain deep, dueling disagreements between federal and state regulators over their share of the blame for events that led to the high lead levels.

The EPA issued an emergency order late last month, saying it was taking over water sampling and requiring public notice of test results, accusing the state of unnecessary delays and a lack of transparency.

But the DEQ — which has taken the brunt of the blame for not requiring Flint to have corrosion control in the first place — also pointed a finger of blame back at the EPA, saying the agency kept it waiting months for a legal opinion about whether such corrosion control was even required.

"Between February (2015) and the end of September 2015, there were multiple e-mail exchanges and conference calls between MDEQ and EPA," Creagh testified. "Yet when the parties were unable to come to consensus on its implementation in July 2015, the EPA failed to provide the legal opinion requested by the MDEQ until November 2015."

Creagh, who replaced former DEQ Director Dan Wyant after Wyant resigned in late December amid the crisis, seemed to provide contradictory testimony about the agency's culpability, however. While agreeing with a state task force that DEQ's response was "minimalistic and legalistic" in regards to public safety in Flint, he also suggested the EPA gave conflicting advice and was at least partially to blame, without ever acknowledging outright that the state should have required corrosion control before Flint made the switch to more corrosive river water.

"It’s the question of the day," Creagh said, "who made what decisions when."

DEQ chief: EPA dragged feet in Flint crisis for months

The EPA was chastised for not moving more quickly considering that it learned of high levels of lead in Walters' home nearly a year ago. But the agency has left no doubts, especially in the last month, where it believes most of the blame lies, with the state having primary responsibility for overseeing drinking water under federal statute. In his prepared testimony for the committee, Beauvais reiterated the agency's view that rules required the city to have corrosion control in place when it changed its water source.

"MDEQ incorrectly advised the City of Flint that corrosion-control treatment was not necessary, resulting in leaching of lead into the city's drinking water," Beauvais said. "EPA regional staff urged MDEQ to address the lack of corrosion control, but was met with resistance. The delays in implementing the actions needed to treat the drinking water and in informing the public of ongoing health risks raise very serious concerns."

As the testimony got under way Wednesday, Beauvais shook his head as Creagh again maintained that a reading of federal rules could allow the DEQ to test for about two years before requiring corrosion controls in Flint, even though the state has already acknowledged it should have required those treatments beforehand to make sure the water was safe.

Marc Edwards, a water researcher at Virginia Tech University who took a team to Flint to sample water and found extremely high levels in some residents' homes, told the committee his belief that the problems in the city "probably started innocently in the chaos of the turnover (to the Flint River) and someone simply forgot to follow the law." He added that it was inconceivable that someone purposely thought corrosion controls were unnecessary.

But with Chaffetz noting the committee's main mission as a congressional panel is to vet the EPA's response, Edwards, too, had harsh words for the agency, saying that while primary responsibility for the crisis in Flint rests with DEQ officials, there was no question that the EPA could have — and should have —intervened far sooner once it learned, as long ago as last April, that there were no corrosion controls in Flint.

He added that belies a problem nationwide, where the EPA, to his way of thinking, has failed to enforce the federal Lead and Copper Rule in terms of ensuring that sample and testing requirements in cities across the U.S. are followed. He noted that, even under the terms of the Lead and Copper Rule, none of the DEQ-approved samples taken in Flint during what it argued was a permissible testing period would have independently triggered action.

"It just shows what a joke this rule is," said Edwards. "You wouldn’t think you’d have to wait around for lead in the water to spike and lead in children’s blood to spike to do what they should have done.

"They (the people of Flint) have been fundamentally betrayed by the agencies paid to protect them."

Asked directly about why EPA doesn't or hasn't done more to ensure cities and states meet federal rules for lead, Edwards, who has researched water issues around the country, said, "I think EPA casts a blind eye on these municipalities which are not following (the LCR)."

"The only thing I can conclude is that they don't care," he added, a sentiment Beauvais dismissed.

Buses brought people from Flint, some of whom noticed the smelly, discolored water almost as soon as the city made the switch, to the hearing in Washington, where there were so many that audience members were rotated in and out of the hearing room periodically. On several occasions, cheers broke out when committee members or those testifying spoke of the potential for criminal charges being brought in the scandal or Gov. Rick Snyder being called to testify.

One woman left the hearing room in tears.

Gladyes Williamson, a lifelong Flint resident who’s retired from General Motors, was among those who came to Washington. She has been traveling to nearby Mt. Morris, twice a week to shower.

“I can’t afford to lose more hair,” she explained, pulling out of her bag some wads of hair she lost while still showering in her home. As she walked from the hearing room to another room for a news conference, a worker in the Capitol complex saw her "Flint Lives Matter" T-shirt and yelled out his support.

Meanwhile, Flint resident and water activist Melissa Mays, who traveled to Washington with her three sons, said while she “thoroughly enjoyed” listening to lawmakers question state and federal regulators, "it's not enough." She said she also wants to talk in person with Snyder, who was not invited to the hearing, and former Flint Emergency Manager Darnell Earley, who refused service of a subpoena to testify on Tuesday.

“I want to see them face-to-face…I want to ask them, `Why did you do this to my kids? Why did you allow this?’” Mays said. For the two of them not to testify, she said, “shows how little we still mean.”

“We’ve been poisoned by politics and policies," added Lorenzo Lee Avery Jr., also of Flint. "It affects everyone in our home. ... I had a dream that I could drink water out of the faucet …Snyder needs to be arrested."

During the hearing, many Democrats on the committee picked up on the theme that Snyder, who has apologized for the state's failures, should have been called before the committee to explain his administration's missteps. U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the committee's ranking Democrat, said he and other Democrats on the committee were signing a letter to insist that Snyder, Earley and other emergency managers in Flint who played a role in the city's water switch be called to testify.

“We are missing the most critical witness of all: the governor of the State of Michigan,” Cummings said.

Chaffetz, who said during the hearing he would instruct federal marshals to "hunt down and find" Earley if necessary to compel his testimony, said after the hearing that he wouldn't rule out calling the governor but that he first wanted to subpoena Earley, who just announced his resignation as emergency manager of Detroit Public Schools, and former EPA Region 5 head Susan Hedman, who was criticized for openly downplaying a draft report from one of her own staff last June that showed high lead levels in residences in Flint.

Hedman resigned effective Monday of this week. Chaffetz said he wants Earley and Hedman to appear behind closed doors for staff depositions before deciding whether another hearing is necessary and any other steps the committee may take. Earley's lawyer, A. Scott Bolden, indicated to the Free Press on Wednesday that he would accept such a subpoena for his client if issued one.

Asked specifically about the EPA, Chaffetz, meanwhile, said, "I really do wonder not only if people should be fired but if some people should be put in jail."

U.S. Rep. Brenda Lawrence, a Democrat from Southfield who made the initial call for the hearing, said she never thought this situation could happen in America, or in Michigan, “where we’re surrounded by fresh water and the Great Lakes.”

“We can fix this,” she said, “but we have to have those who made the decisions come forward and give answers.”

U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee, a Flint Township Democrat who has been pushing for federal resources to be offered to Flint and the governor to come forward and answer questions, testified that the state has a "moral" responsibility to fix the city's damaged infrastructure, which could cost hundreds of millions dollars, if not more than a billion.

He's also been part of an effort to secure up to $400 million in federal matching funds to pay for infrastructure repairs in Flint that could lay to rest any worries about lead, but that measure is already facing problems in the U.S. Senate, where an attempt to get an even less-ambitious measure attached to an energy bill being debated is struggling to gain traction.

Kildee also said efforts to shift blame to the EPA are an unwarranted distraction from what was mostly a decision ultimately made by Snyder's appointees.

“I’m critical of the EPA in this case, don’t get me wrong," said Kildee. "I wish as soon as the EPA found there was problem with the water in Flint, they had shouted it from the mountaintop. Instead, they insisted the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality do its job."

"The Flint water crisis is ... a human disaster brought on by the failures of humans as well as brought on by failures of government at all levels," said U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg, a Republican fromTipton and a member of the committee. "I wouldn’t want my kids or my grandkids to have to drink this type of water. ... It's not the kind of thing we should think of (happening) in America.”

U.S. Rep. Justin Amash, a Republican from Cascade Charter Township, also called for an "independent, nonpartisan investigation" and questioned why the state isn't doing more, saying it spends more on the Pure Michigan ad campaign for the state than it has committed so far this year on Flint.

"I’ve never liked the emergency manager law," Amash added, referring to rules under which local decisions are switched to Snyder appointees. "It takes power away from the people in the community."

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Pastor Gerald Cardwell of Quinn Chapel in Flin, and Pastor Ira G. Edwards Sr. of Damascus Holy Life Baptist Church in Flin, both flew to Washington for the hearing, saying they were disappointed Snyder was not testifying.

“He represents the people of Michigan, and he needs to be here to address this issue,” Cardwell said. “He should own up to his responsibility and stand up before this committee.”



Edwards added: “Unless he’s afraid."

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Edwards said his top priority is getting funding to replace the lead pipes in Flint. “This is nothing political. This is about lives,” he said.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misspelled former DEQ Director Dan Wyant’s name.

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

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