EPA failed to sound alarm in Michigan water crisis, watchdog finds

Water remained contaminated in Benton Harbor, 175 miles from Flint, as state regulators attempted fixes that failed for three years

In the aftermath of the Flint water crisis, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2016 established a new lead contamination response system that regulators claimed would help prevent a repeat of the deadly catastrophe.

But that newly implemented policy was ignored by EPA staff starting in 2018 as residents in Benton Harbor, Michigan, for three years drank water poisoned with astronomical levels of lead in some cases far above what was found in Flint, federal investigators charge.