The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will conduct a full review of the actions taken to address drinking water quality issues in Flint. It is expected to be completed by the end of this week, with results released next week.
EPA regional administrator Susan Hedman said in a Nov. 3 letter to U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee, D-Flint, that she was asked by the head of the federal agency to carry out the review.
This comes after a request last month from Kildee in a letter to the EPA. He says he raised questions to the EPA as to what the agency knew about the Flint water situation and it was doing to oversee the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality and its enforcement of clean water laws.
Kildee says he wants to "get to the bottom of how this could have happened."
"I need to get answers to those questions so we can try to figure out how to make sure this never happens to anybody else again," Kildee said.
Kildee says he will meet with Hedman next week, at which time he expects to receive a status report on the investigation.
"It remains to be seen whether their review will be completely responsive to the request that I sent over there, and if it's not obviously I'll have to make a decision about how I pursue this further," he said.
Kildee said he wants anyone inside the EPA or Michigan Department of Environmental Quality to be aware of one thing:
"Myself and others who represent Flint residents, we're not going to take an apology or reassignment of a staff person as an answer to this problem," he said. "We need clear and transparent facts to be provided and we'll make our judgments about how to move forward from there."
- Paulette Parker, Michigan Radio Newsroom
