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Former Flint emergency manager Jerry Ambrose waits to speak during a press conference announcing the end of Flint's financial emergency on Wednesday, April 29, 2015, in Flint in this Flint Journal file photo.
(Flint Journal file photo)
One water expert says Flint's former emergency managers appeared to care more about saving money than about the people who lived here during the city's water crisis.
Stephen Estes-Smargiassi, director of planning and sustainability at the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, told a forum on lead water contamination at the Harvard School of Public Health that a chain-reaction of failures, including those by the financial managers, allowed the water crisis to develop as long as it did.
"What happened in Flint? Well, a firestorm of things that went wrong ...," Estes-Smargiassi said during the forum, which was recorded April 20. "(Flint) changed (its) source water, didn't do a good job on corrosion control in their treatment.
"They had, about half of the homes had lead service lines. Money was more important to the emergency manager than people were. That's pretty clear from the evidence," he said.
"State regulators could have picked up on this, but fell down on the job, maybe worse than that. We'll see what happens to those who were indicted.
"And the federal regulators could have picked up the problem, but didn't until quite late. All of those things, that firestorm of events, resulted in really awful water quality."
Two of the four men appointed as emergency managers in Flint under Gov. Rick Snyder from 2011 until 2015 have been charged and pleaded not guilty to criminal wrongdoing related to the water crisis.
In addition to comments about the Flint, the hour-long forum includes discussion of whether other cities are risk for contaminated water and why children are at particular risk for adverse health effects from lead.