Watchdog: EPA delayed emergency order

The Environmental Protection Agency had sufficient authority and information to issue an emergency order to protect residents of Flint, Michigan, from leadcontaminated water as early as June 2015 — seven months before it declared an emergency, the EPA’s inspector general said Thursday.

The Flint crisis should have generated “a greater sense of urgency” at the agency to “intervene when the safety of drinking water is compromised,” Inspector General Arthur Elkins said in an interim report.

Flint’s drinking water became tainted when the city began drawing from the Flint River in April 2014 to save money. The impoverished city of 100,000 north of Detroit was under state control at the time. Regulators failed to ensure water was treated properly and lead from aging pipes leached into the water supply.

Federal, state and local officials have argued over who’s to blame as the crisis continues to force residents to drink bottled or filtered water.