More than a month after residents in the city of Benton Harbor called on EPA to take emergency action to relieve them of contaminated drinking water, the state - not the federal government -is taking the lead and ramping up its response.EPA’s wait-and-see approach, critics say, appears at odds with President Biden’s repeated calls for urgent action to remove all of the nation’s lead water pipes as part of an infrastructure packagemaking its way through Congress.Those calling for federal action say they’re heartened by the steps Michigan officials took yesterday to address the crisis. As for EPA, they say the federal agency has yet to approve their petitionfor emergency action, a position they say falls in line with the agency’s response seven years ago when a lead crisis erupted in Flint, Mich.
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