Governor Rick Snyder says the federal government has not been held fully accountable for its role in the Flint water crisis.
The governor says he’s cleaned house at the state Department of Environmental Quality and is ready to do more. But, he says the US Environmental Protection Agency is also to blame. “They still haven’t fully acknowledged all their issues,” he told reporters following a speech in Lansing to association executives. “So, we’ll move forward with our piece of it, and, I expect, hopefully, people are asking good, tough questions of the federal government that should be asked.”
The EPA’s regional administrator in Chicago quit in the wake of the crisis. That’s after it was revealed the agency failed to sound the alarm once it learned the state had not properly treated corrosive water from the Flint River, causing lead to leach into the drinking water.
The governor is expected to testify, probably next month, at a congressional hearing on the Flint water crisis. The governor says he’s also conducting a review of the state Department of Health and Human Services on why officials waited to warn the public about an outbreak of Legionnaire’s disease that may have been related to the water crisis.
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— Rick Pluta is the Managing Editor and Reporter for the Michigan Public Radio network. Contact WEMU News at 734.487.3363 or email us at studio@wemu.org
