Watchdog: EPA failed to flag Benton Harbor toxic drinking water

The Environmental Protection Agency should bolster its response to critical public health issues after a lackluster response to toxic drinking water in Benton Harbor, Michigan, according to a federal watchdog.

The regional EPA staff based in Chicago failed to alert national leaders quickly enough of toxic lead levels in Benton Harbor’s drinking water after the problem was detected, according to a Sept. 7 report from the EPA’s Office of Inspector General.

The failure came despite the agency’s so-called escalation policy, which was crafted two years earlier in the wake of the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, that urges staff to alert the EPA administrator of issues that meet certain worrisome criteria.

Flint’s 2014-2015 water contamination crisis put Michigan at the epicenter of the national spotlight on safe drinking water and lead contamination. Like Flint, Benton Harbor is a majority African-American city with above-average poverty and unemployment rates.

The OIG launched the Benton Harbor audit in February 2022 to review how the EPA followed its own policies when responding to evidence of contaminated drinking water, which was uncovered in 2018.

“The conditions in Benton Harbor met four of the policy’s five criteria for elevation,” said EPA Inspector General Sean O’Donnell. “That this situation was not raised for higher levels of attention led us to question what circumstances would be elevated under this policy.”

In late 2018, a local EPA program manager emailed Michigan officials about Benton Harbor’s lead levels and began monitoring the state’s response. Despite the high lead levels and other shortcomings with the water system, the local EPA staff did not report the issue quickly enough to the administrator, the report said.

For years residents drank bottled water and the issue was not fully addressed until 2021.

The EPA’s elevation policy urges staff to quickly elevate public health risks that “require higher levels of attention than the agency’s usual processes could address,” according to the report. “An EPA staff member involved with monitoring Michigan’s response told us that the state was addressing the lead levels in a timely manner. Even still, elevated lead levels and other compliance issues at the Benton Harbor water system met several of the elevation policy criteria, and Region 5 drinking water staff did not elevate these issues.”

The inspector general recommended the EPA review and strengthen the elevation policy.

The EPA pushed back against the audit, arguing that regional staff did alert the administrator about Benton Harbor’s contaminated water, and that the elevation policy is “effective and working as intended.”

After a $30 million state-funded effort in 2022 to replace nearly all lead service lines, lead levels in Benton Harbor’s drinking water are now under federal action levels.

Michigan utilities are required to replace all of their lead service lines by 2041.