LANSING, Mich. – Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder said Tuesday that the federal government had multiple failures with respect to preventing and responding to the lead contamination of Flint's drinking water, and he said he hopes federal officials are being asked tough questions.
"They failed to do a lot of things in this process," Snyder, a Republican, said in Lansing.
"I'm not going to spend time on their issue," he said. "That will come out as time passes, in terms of not identifying the issue, not bringing it to either the state's attention or even other people in the federal government's attention. They still haven't fully acknowledged all of their issues."
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency took strong exception to Snyder's remarks in a statement issued through spokeswoman Monica Lee.
"EPA's ability to oversee … management of that situation was impacted by resistance and failures at the state and local levels to work with EPA in a forthright, transparent, and proactive manner consistent with the seriousness of the risks to public health," the statement said.
The EPA eventually issued an order in January "because the agency's repeated and urgent requests and technical assistance, it was taking too long to address the serious problems with the Flint drinking water system."
Flint's water became contaminated with lead in April 2014, while the city was under the control of a state-appointed emergency manager, after it temporarily switched its source of drinking water from Lake Huron water treated by the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department to Flint River water treated at the Flint water treatment plant.
For months, state officials dismissed reports of rising lead levels in the drinking water and the blood of Flint children before acknowledging a problem around Oct. 1.
