Snyder Will Testify in Congress on Flint Water Crisis

This story has been updated.

LANSING, MI – The head of a congressional oversight committee has accepted Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder’s request to testify at yet to be scheduled hearings of the U.S. House Oversight and Reform Committee, which is investigating the state’s response to the Flint water crisis.

Patch’s earlier report:

Gov. Rick Snyder said Friday that he wants to testify before the U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee investigating the Flint water crisis and explain why he thinks the public health catastrophe requires remedies at every level of government.

The governor’s office said Friday that Snyder called committee chairman U.S. Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, on Thursday and asked to testify in as yet-unscheduled hearings about the state’s response to reports of dangerously high levels of lead in Flint’s drinking water supply, the Detroit Free Press reports.

Snyder said that because Flint residents suffered due to a “failure at all levels of government,” it is “understandable that there are questions at all levels of government.” Snyder said recommendations to remedy problems in Flint include participation at the local, state and federal levels.

“In Michigan we are learning a great deal from this crisis, and I am hopeful the federal government also will use this as an opportunity to examine health and safety protections in place, assess infrastructure needs, and avoid this type of crisis in the future,” Snyder said.

In the hearings, most of the blame for the public health crisis has been placed on the state’s Department of Environmental Quality for not putting corrosion control measures in place when water was switched from Lake Huron to the Flint River in a 2014 cost-cutting move overseen by a state-appointed emergency manager.

Without the control measures, which a DEQ official claimed had been installed, lead from the aging pipes leached into the drinking water supply.