IG Urges New EPA Guidance On SDWA Orders To Prevent Next Flint Crisis

摘要

EPA's Inspector General (IG) is urging EPA to update its 1991 guidance on when to issue a Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) Emergency Order and require all agency drinking water and water enforcement management and staff to attend training on the orders after the IG found the agency should have acted sooner in the Flint, MI, crisis. In an Oct. 20 "management alert," the IG says "emergency authority was available for EPA to take actions [sooner] to protect the public from contamination" resulting from the city's April 2014 switch of drinking water supplies and subsequent failure to adequately treat the new source to keep lead levels under federal standards.(Doc. ID: 195632) EPA could have issued an emergency order as early as June 2015 when Region 5 water office employee Miguel del Toral submitted an interim report about lead contamination identified in Flint homes and major public health concerns, the IG says. But the agency did not issue a SDWA section 1431 emergency order until January 2016.