Posted on 01/23/2016 7:38:22 AM PST by Kaslin
You may recall that reporters finally caught up with EPA chief Gina McCarthy in DC the other day and asked her about the situation in Flint, Michigan and the dismal (if not criminal) response of her agency. She informed everyone that, “we did our job.” That’s an interesting perspective, particularly in light of the fact that she just accepted the resignation of the Region 5 administrator who sat on reports of toxic water in Flint for months without telling anyone. (The Hill)
The regional Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) chief responsible for Michigan is resigning amid charges that she did not do enough to prevent the Flint, Mich., drinking water crisis.
Susan Hedman, regional administrator for the EPA's Chicago-based region 5, submitted her resignation Thursday, effective Feb. 1, the EPA said.
"EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy has accepted given Susan's strong interest in ensuring that EPA region 5's focus remains solely on the restoration of Flint's drinking water," an EPA spokeswoman said late Thursday.
Hedman told the Detroit News last week that her office knew in April 2015 that Flint's action to switch its water supply could cause increased pipe corrosion and spiked lead levels.
The first question which should come to everyone’s minds is, why was this woman allowed to just resign? Why wasn’t she fired? I understand that sounds like a silly question since nobody at the EPA has been held accountable for anything since McCarthy has been in charge, but surely this is different. It’s true that somebody made the decision to switch the city’s water supply from Detroit to the Flint River and the damage was accelerated by their failure to anticipate the water treatment required to prevent the pipes from rotting out. Those involved with that decision need to be held accountable. But the EPA knew (or strongly suspected) that the people of Flint were drinking what is essentially toxic waste for six months and they said nothing. They suppressed a report which could have gotten safety protocols in motion while they argued internally over petty bureaucratic concerns and allowed the citizens to continue ingesting lead for months on end.
What kind of a human being does that? How was there not a single person inside that EPA regional office who thought to pick up the phone, call a newspaper and tell them that tens of thousands of people might very well be on the path to lead poisoning? Any reporter could go down to Walmart and pick up a kit capable of testing the lead levels in drinking water for under twenty bucks. This is outrageous, and I say that as somebody who has to watch government malfeasance on a daily basis for a living. And yet nobody seems to even be suggesting that Gina McCarthy be held accountable for this.
The EPA is been a hotbed of incompetence, corruption, partisanship, waste and fraud for years now and not a single person is made to stand against the wheel. If people want to hold Governor Rick Snyder accountable for this fiasco, fine. It happened on his watch. But Gina McCarthy’s neck needs to be stretched out on the block right next to his.
Best I can tell, that white haired “woman” is not the EPA regional administrator but the higher-level Washington administrator.
Ever notice how the EPA never finds endangered 'snail darters' on ugly land?
That said, the EPA doesn't give a damn about American citizens...or children or unsafe water. Trump should disband the organization and replace it with the CPA - Citizen Protection Agency... A group that would protect everyday citizens from incompetent thugs in other government agencies... including those who oversee safe water.
The lead came from the river. They had switched sources to save money. (more bucks for their obscene bennies no doubt)
All of this is going to make President Cruz’s plan to get rid of the EPA that much easier next year.
Are the people in Flint the only ones in America that do not drink bottled water?
There has already been “news” stories on the problems of lead paint in older buildings being one of the causes of the violent behavior we are seeing in the inner city minorities that are living in these buildings.
This started over a year ago.
Obama’s policy of moving the low income housing from the inner city to the suburbs has already been started but there needs to be some type of “emergency” so it can be done “for the children”.
The liberals idea of the inner city renewal has been ongoing for over 50 years but it will never work as long as there is all the violent crime in the inner cities.
Move the violent crime out to the suburbs and the liberal elites that moved to the suburbs to get away from the crime will move back to the inner cities to get away from the crime.
Inner cities will become too expensive for anyone to live in but the elites.
McCarthy is the worst EPA head ever. How many environmental disasters keep occurring on her watch?
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