THE GRAND RAPIDS PRESS / SUNDAY, MAY 8, 2016 / D15
The mistakes made
State DEQ ‘caused this crisis to happen’
Dan Wyant RESIGNED
Brad Wurfel RESIGNED
Liane Shekter Smith FIRED
Stephen Busch CHARGED
“It seems like there’s been a fundamental cultural shift in the DEQ. (The) enforcement role has taken a back seat to compliance with the law.”
Task force finds department misinterpreted federal rules, and officials tried to discredit those who discovered problems
By John Counts
johncounts@mlive.com
T
he failures of the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality in the Flint water crisis were chronic and catastrophic. Despite aggressively defending its actions as the crisis worsened, the DEQ is now largely blamed for exposing the city of Flint to lead-laden water. It has been the only state department where heads have rolled. Department director Dan Wyant and communications director Brad Wurfel announced their resignation in late December, months after Gov. Rick Snyder’s administration admitted there was a lead problem and a few weeks before Flint was declared a federal emergency. Snyder soon afterward fired Liane Shekter Smith, chief of the DEQ’s Office of Drinking Water and Municipal Assistance, and suspended her district manager, Stephen Busch. Busch and DEQ engineer Mike Prysby were also among the first to face criminal charges. They are charged with misconduct in office, conspiracy to tamper with evidence, tampering with evidence, a treatment violation of the Michigan Safe Drinking Water Act and a monitoring violation of the Safe Drinking Water. It was the DEQ that oversaw plans to get the Flint Water Treatment plant up and running when the water source was switched in April 2014. The DEQ — specifically Prysby — misinterpreted federal guidelines and did not make corrosion control part of the plan, according to testimony. It proved to be a colossal mistake. The corrosive Flint River water ate through a protective layer inside the pipes, allowing lead from the pipes to leach into the drinking water. Prysby is still employed by the DEQ, though some have called for his termination, including LeeAnn Walters, the Flint mother who first brought the lead problem into the public spotlight. But the problems with the DEQ run deeper than just a few mid-level employees, according to emails, interviews and the findings of the Flint Water Advisory Task Force. Since 2001, DEQ funding has dropped 20 percent and staffing by 18 percent, with fewer regulators to keep tabs on air and water quality, monitor construction in wetlands and sand dunes and penalize polluters. Under Snyder, a Republican who took office in 2011, “it seems like there’s been a fundamental cultural shift in the DEQ,” said Robert McCann, the DEQ’s press secretary under Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm from 2004 to 2010. “(The) enforcement role has taken a back seat to compliance with the law.” Lt. Governor Brian Calley acknowledged this has been problem. “We have to be intentional about changing the culture in DEQ, from one of compliance to one of safety,” he said. “There’s a
Mike Prysby CHARGED
ROBERT MCCANN, DEQ PRESS SECRETARY UNDER GOV. JENNIFER GRANHOLM FROM 2004 TO 2010
Dan Wyant, then-director of the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, speaks Oct. 2, 2015, as Flint and state officials announce an action plan to deal with lead in Flint’s drinking water during a news conference at Kettering University in Flint. The action plan included immediate testing of water in Flint schools and providing water filters for residents. (Danny Miller | MLive.com)
Protestors march along Saginaw Street outside Flint City Hall on Oct. 7, 2015, to demand clean water. (Christian Randolph | MLive.com)
reliance on technical standards and technical expertise that needs to change. It’s not to say that there’s not value in that expertise. I don’t think we could get along without it.” But merely relying on compliance is partly what led to the Flint crisis, according to Calley. He said, “When you ask a question, like if you were to ask the question last summer, ‘Is the water in Flint safe?’ and the answer comes back, ‘Our test results show we’re in compliance with the lead and copper rule.’ That sounds like they’re saying yes, sort of. But they’re not really saying yes.” When he took office, Snyder picked former agricultural director Wyant to head up the DEQ.
From the get-go, it seemed like the new department head was in line with Snyder’s pro-business agenda. In a September 2011 interview, Wyant said the first priority of all state agencies is to revitalize Michigan’s economy. “It’s true we’d like to have more resources, but it’s important that we get the economy back on track first,” Wyant told Crain’s Business Detroit. “The DEQ can be a part of that by not being a hurdle to economic growth.” Flint Watt, the former chief of the DEQ’s Drinking Water and Radiological Protection Division, thinks there also is a problem with how people are chosen to head up various internal depart-
ments. Watt, who retired in 2002, said a shift happened during his tenure in the department. Watt started out in the Department of Community Health, where the state’s drinking water program originally dwelled. “Things had been changing as soon as the DEQ was created,” he said. “They basically tried to combine programs in a lot of different areas.” The DEQ has been touched by each governor since it was created by Gov. John Engler in 1995. The Department of Natural Resources previously dealt with such environmental issues. In 2009, Granholm combined the agencies to form the MDEQ. When Snyder took office, he
separated them again. Watt said it was eventually decided that administrators didn’t necessarily need to have an expertise or background in the department they ran. “I didn’t necessarily agree at the time and I still don’t,” Watt said. “The management of the programs got more politicized.” McCann was also aware of the state’s drinking water program going through some bureaucratic maneuvering before ending up in the DEQ as an independent office headed up by Shekter Smith. Her background wasn’t in drinking water, for instance, but in hazardous waste. It was amidst this milieu that the Flint mistakes were made. The members of the Snyderappointed Flint Water Advisory Task Force were “disconcerted” when they came away from interviews with DEQ employees, according to task force member Eric Rothstein. “They were intransigent in taking a position (during the water crisis) and, when told of concerns, they refused to consider what might be wrong,” Rothstein said. “That’s a problem and as damnable as anything that went on. That lack of willingness to reconsider decisions was just heartbreaking. ... I attribute it to an interpretation by individuals who are intransigent — ‘I made the call and I’m not changing my mind.’” Ken Sikkema, another task force member, said the DEQ staff were “very defensive and borderline belligerent” in defending their decisions. Department officials dug in their heels from the very beginning. There were complaints about the water quality almost immediately after the switch from Detroit to Flint River water. Amidst all of the problems — boil water advisories, high levels of trihalomethanes — Brad Wurfel, the DEQ’s former public information officer, was the department’s main public voice. Throughout the thousands of emails released by Snyder’s administration, Wurfel — who is married to the governor’s former press secretary, Sara Wurfel — consistently downplayed any problems in a truculent tone, referring early on to the water problems as “aesthetic” issues. CONTINUED ON PAGE 16