by EPA editor and columnist Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo and Kevin Berends
The law is clear: once officials at the federal Environmental Protection Agency were made aware of hazardous material in Flint, Michigan’s water, they were required by statute to take action to remove it. The chief of the EPA, as well as the regional administrator, failed to comply with the law. “Why hasn’t the president...recommended them both to the Attorney General for criminal prosecution?”
The EPA Blame Game and the Flint Lead Atrocity: Criminal Prosecutions Must Follow
by EPA editor and columnist Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo and Kevin Berends
“The mere presence of hazardous waste at a site or facility is sufficient to cause the issuance of an Order.”
With last week's resignation of the Environmental Protection Agency's Region 5 Administrator, Susan Hedman, we now see how efficient government can be with damage control – effectively throwing Ms. Hedman under the bus while attempting to obscure the agency's complicity in crimes committed indiscriminately against the people of Flint, Michigan. By focusing on the agency's too little, too late measures moving foreword, the federal government hopes to escape accountability for its role in this atrocity. If only those at the helm were half as good at fulfilling their legal obligation to protect communities as they are in covering their own asses this calamity could – and should – have been avoided.
Even if we grant that the Flint atrocity was simply a matter of prolonged criminal negligence and put aside questions of environmental racism, those responsible need to face criminal charges and answer to the public in court. The mechanism for EPA Regional Administrator Hedman to have issued an order to immediately halt the use of Flint River water as the source of Flint's drinking water is laid out in the EPA's website under the heading: Guidance: Issuing RCRA Section 3013 Administrative Orders:
“The requirement for ‘information’ means that some reliable information upon which a reasonable person would base a decision or take action has been gathered or presented before issuance of the Order. Such information may include laboratory analysis of samples, observations recorded in the course of an inspection, and citizens complaints corroborated by supporting information."
“The federal government hopes to escape accountability for its role in this atrocity.”
The Detroit News reported that “EPA water expert” Miguel Del Toral, identified potential contamination problems with Flint’s drinking water last February and confirmed the suspicions in April. He authored an internal memo about the problem in June, according to documents obtained by Virginia Tech.” The ACLU has accused Hedman of downplaying the significance of the Del Toral investigation.
EPA's Guidance goes on to say, "It should be noted that the mere presence of hazardous waste at a site or facility is sufficient to cause the issuance of an Order, provided that the information indicates that the presence of the waste may present a substantial hazard."
So while Ms. Hedman's resignation is a welcome development, it is a far cry from even the beginning of a satisfactory outcome. Criminal negligence and misconduct require that further punitive measures be taken.
There will be ample finger pointing. There will be copious hand wringing. There will be lavish amounts of money thrown at the problem to stem the tide in the poisoning of innocents in Flint, Michigan. But none of it will reverse the damage already done. No accusing finger is long enough to remove the lead from the bodies, joints and brains of young and particularly vulnerable children. No clean up operation will bring back the nine lives lost to Legionnaires' disease, or undo the eighty-seven Legionnaires’ disease cases that were confirmed between June 2014 and November 2015.
President Obama said from Michigan on Wednesday that he would be beside himself if he were a parent and learned that his children had been poisoned. Then again next day at the U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting in Washington he criticized Michigan’s response as “inexcusable,” saying, “Our children should not have to be worried about the water that they’re drinking in American cities. That’s not something that we should accept.”
“This president prefers to move forward rather than hold those accountable for atrocities committed against innocent populations.”
Indeed. Apparently, however, the President has no problem accepting criminality among his administration's administrators.
And while EPA Administrator McCarthy did accept the resignation of Region 5 Administrator Hedman, why hasn’t the president called for McCarthy's resignation also and recommended them both to the Attorney General for criminal prosecution? The answer may be found in the President's approach to other instances of high government officials' participation in crimes against humanity, as is the case with US wars of aggression in the Middle East, its torture program, and use of internationally prohibited weapons. This president prefers to move forward rather than hold those accountable for atrocities committed against innocent populations.
The three lawsuits pending in the Michigan courts, combined with Flint citizens maintaining their advocacy and activism in the streets, may result in achieving some measure of justice. But it is imperative that the US Department of Justice aggressively pursue all those in the chain of command that led to the mass and intergenerational poisoning of innocents in Flint – even if that chain of command leads all the way to the Oval Office.
Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo is the author of the Pulitzer Prize nominated: No FEAR: A Whistleblowers Triumph over Corruption and Retaliation at the EPA. She worked at the EPA for 18 years and blew the whistle on a US multinational corporation that endangered South African vanadium mine workers. Marsha's successful lawsuit led to the introduction and passage of the first civil rights and whistleblower law of the 21st century: the Notification of Federal Employees Anti-discrimination and Retaliation Act of 2002 (No FEAR Act). She is Director of Transparency and Accountability for the Green Shadow Cabinet, serves on the Advisory Board of ExposeFacts.com and coordinates the Hands Up Coalition, DC.
Kevin Berends is the Director of Communication for www.nofearinstitute.org, was the co-founder and first executive editor of Lake Affect Magazine and producer of the independent television program 'Streetlevel.' He serves on the Board of Directors of Voters for Peace in Washington, D.C.
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