PARCHMENT, Mich. - In response to the water issues in West Michigan, Democrats say Gov. Rick Snyder's administration hit a level of corruption "unheard of" by not acting on a 2012 Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) report warning of a potential "crisis" resulting from PFAS issues in water supplies.
Senate Minority Leader Jim Ananich (D-Flint) compared the issues in Parchment and Cooper Township to Flint's water situation and said government leaders let people down in those communities.
He criticized the government's response as "too late."
"To act like you're doing something great [now] and that you're leading on something when you knew about something six years ago [is unfortunate]," Sen. Ananich said. "Or if you didn't know about it, there's a corruption of incompetence or there's a corruption of knowing about something and lying about it. Either way, that level of corruption is unheard of."
Rep. Winnie Brinks (D-Grand Rapids) agreed and said there needs to be greater oversight at the DEQ and hearings need to be held at the legislative level.
"We see this pattern over and over the powers in Lansing actively refusing to do anything about water safety problems until it reaches a crisis level," Rep. Brinks said.
A report prepared by DEQ Environmental Specialist Robert Delaney detailed the PFAS problem in 2012. Delaney wrote as a conclusion to the report: "There is an endless list of things that could and possibly should be done. However, first, those in authority have to be convinced that there is a crisis."
But it does not appear that anybody immediately acted on Delaney's report, and it's interesting to see how he predicted what was to come in 2018. There are numerous PFAS problems around the state, including the water shutoff in Parchment and Cooper Township.
In response to our request for comment, Gov. Snyder's spokesman Ari Adler called the Democrats assessment of the situation an "opportunistic political attack."
"It should be noted that the state found this problem in Parchment’s water supply because Gov. Snyder ordered the testing of all municipal water systems for PFAS regardless of size," Adler wrote in a prepared statement. "We are the only state in the nation doing this to address a national problem."
Lt. Gov. Brian Calley was in Parchment Friday helping with the government's response to the water situation and seconded Adler's statement.
"We want Michigan to be an example for the nation," Calley said during a news conference.
Sen. Ananich had a different view.
"They've allowed people to have their drinking water contaminated and then they rushed to send as many politicians as they could to a press conference to act like they've done something about it, as opposed to stopping it before it happens," Sen. Ananich said.
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