Page 15 - 102717

Groton Daily Independent
Friday, Oct. 27, 2017 ~ Vol. 25 - No. 110 ~ 15 of 48
St. Thomas More 21, Dell Rapids 20
Class 9B
Quarter nal
Castlewood 54, Wall 0
Colman-Egan 30, Faulkton 14
Colome 52, Harding County 0
Sully Buttes 56, Burke/South Central 0
Class 11B
Quarter nal
Bridgewater-Emery/Ethan 18, Winner 8
Sioux Falls Christian 48, Groton Area 14
Sioux Valley 46, Aberdeen Roncalli 0
Woonsocket/Wessington Springs/Sanborn Central 60, Red Cloud 6
EPA: Michigan should boost water safety in Flint, statewide By JOHN FLESHER, AP Environmental Writer
TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) — Staff and funding shortages and poor data management are preventing Michigan environmental regulators from making sure that state residents have safe drinking water, federal of cials said Thursday.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said de ciencies in Michigan’s drinking water operations aren’t limited to Flint, notorious for lead contamination of its system for 18 months starting in spring 2014. Investigations primarily blamed the state Department of Environmental Quality, which failed to require anti-corrosion pipeline treatments when the city changed its water source.
In its newly released report, the EPA evaluated the statewide effectiveness of Michigan’s safe drinking water program. The study was based largely on examination of the state environmental department’s les from October 2013 through September 2015, when the Flint crisis was at its height.
The review “revealed a number of signi cant challenges,” the report said. Among them: too little money, too few people, and inadequate reporting and management of electronic data.
“Staff departures and retirements have caused a signi cant loss in expertise and technical knowledge ... which presents a threat to the future implementation of an effective program,” the report said, adding that the department “must focus on obtaining long-term sources of funding.”
Water data management is “inef cient and antiquated,” the report said, and efforts to x the problem have been hampered by concentration of information technology staff into “a broad agency department without drinking water expertise.”
“Laboratory reporting is very inef cient,” it said, urging the department to make better use of electronic data systems.
The department also failed to require full compliance with its lead and copper pollution rule and some- times did not report instances when lead content exceeded standards, the report said. State of cials must make sure violation notices are issued and the public informed, it said.
Tiffany Brown, spokeswoman for the Michigan department, said the audit raised issues that were two years old, many of which have been addressed.
But the department “will use the recommendations indicated in the report to further improve the Drink- ing Water Program to better ensure the public’s health and safety,” Brown said.
Michigan is among the states that have their own drinking water rules, which must be at least as strin- gent as the federal government’s. EPA periodically assesses how well the states are performing. Agency of cials visited the state department’s Lansing of ce in April 2016.
Their report was based on a review of documents for 25 of more than 10,000 regulated public water