People in Flint say the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality needs to do more than admit mistakes in the handling of the city’s tainted water crisis.
Last week, Flint switched back to Detroit water after numerous problems with lead and other issues in the city’s drinking water. The head of MDEQ admits monitoring errors were made and a top agency official has been reassigned.
That’s not enough for Melissa Mays with the Coalition for Clean Water. She says people should be fired.
“I mean I don’t want anybody to lose their jobs,” says Mays, “But the fact that all these people are sick and all this damage has been done, because they didn’t do their jobs, as a normal person I would have been canned already.”
Flint Mayor Dayne Walling stops short of saying people should be fired. But not far short.
“The people who’ve made these mistakes can’t be responsible for water systems in other communities,” says Walling.
Flint’s mayor says he’s seeking tens of millions of dollars from the state to pay for damage to the city’s water system.
The state is contributing millions of dollars to reconnect Flint to Detroit’s water system.