Under rough questioning from lawmakers, the former head of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Midwest region repeatedly refused Tuesday to say she or her agency did anything wrong in the tainted-water disaster in Flint, Mich., though she acknowledged that officials “could have done more” for residents.
Exasperated lawmakers blasted her at times. “This is where you’re fundamentally and totally wrong,” Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform panel told Hedman. “You screwed up...and you hurt people’s lives.”
Marc Edwards, the Virginia Tech scientist who exposed the tainted water when government agencies failed to do so, called Hedman’s remarks “completely unacceptable and criminal.”
Edwards, appearing on the panel with Hedman and two others, said the EPA official was was guilty of “willful blindness,” was “unremorseful” and was “completely unrepentant and unable to learn from [her] mistakes.”
“I guess being a government agency means you never have to say you’re sorry,” Edwards said.
Flint’s tap water was contaminated by lead when the city temporarily switched to the Flint River for its supply in April 2014. The state failed to ensure that anti-corrosive chemicals were added to the water, which leached lead from aging underground pipes.
Nearly 9,000 children younger than 6, the most vulnerable population, were exposed. Lead can cause permanent learning disabilities, behavior problems and, at higher levels, a number of diseases.
Flint switched back to water from Lake Huron in October. Residents still cannot safely drink unfiltered tap water, but Edwards said Tuesday that lead levels were declining. Children, pregnant women and people with certain health problems have been told to consume only bottled water, and many others are following that advice.
In the first of two hearings on Flint this week, the committee also heard from former Flint emergency manager Darnell Earley, who was Flint’s top authority when the switch to river water was made, and former Flint mayor Dayne Walling. Testimony from all three officials ws marked mostly by attempts to disavow responsibility for the crisis.
Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) and EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy are scheduled to appear before the committee Thursday.
Hedman said legal rules and limited enforcement powers reduced the agency to working with state environmental regulators behind the scenes to fix the problems that exposed the city’s 95,000 residents to lead.
“EPA was forced to evaluate the enforcement tools available under the Safe Drinking Water Act, which are more limited than the enforcement provisions in other federal environmental statutes,” Hedman said. She said she resigned in part because of “false allegations” published about her that damaged EPA’s efforts in Flint and because “this tragedy happened on my watch.”
Hedman was not the only person to endure sharp questioning Tuesday. Ranking member Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) pressed Earley on why he did not protect water consumers when he learned that General Motors had stopped using Flint River water because it was corroding engine parts. Earley said he was following the state environmental quality department’s advice.
“You don’t have to be a water treatment expert!” Cummings fairly shouted at Earley. “A five-year-old could figure that out!”
Cummings highlighted decision-making by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, which admitted in October that it had mistakenly failed to ensure that anti-corrosive water treatment was used. After the hearing, he said “the person [whom] I think has the most responsibility is, certainly, the governor.”
Republican committee members focused much of their questioning on why Hedman did not publicly alert residents about the possible danger of drinking the water after she read a memo from Miguel Del Toral, an EPA water scientist, that noted the lack of corrosion controls. They also referred to an email from del Toral that implied he was being punished for airing his views, a view Edwards repeatedly supported under questioning Tuesday.
Hedman said the report included information on only three homes with high lead levels and concluded that the cause might be road work. She said a legal opinion constrained what she could say publicly.
But even Democrat Ted Lieu (Calif.) asked: “Why did you not just stand up and scream: stop this!…To me this is negligence bordering on total indifference.”
