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Greater Flint Health Coalition (GFHC)
MDEQ is the state agency in charge of overseeing the quality of Michigan’s land, air, and water. Throughout the Flint water crisis, the MDEQ knowingly manipulated lead-level results in order to make Flint’s water seem safer than it truly was.
Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) Quotes in What the Eyes Don’t See
The What the Eyes Don’t See quotes below are all either spoken by Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) or refer to Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ). For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 3
Quotes
“If Miguel’s right that Flint is not using corrosion control, that means there’s lead in Flint's water.”
“Lead in the water?”
[…] “And based on Miguel’s memo,” she went on, “the lead levels in the Flint water are really, really high. He suspects that MDEQ isn’t testing correctly. That’s why he leaked the memo.”
“Are you kidding me?” I shook my head. “Why would anybody at the EPA need to leak their own memo?”
Elin cocked her head and just stared at me, deadpan. She was waiting for me to catch up.
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Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) Term Timeline in What the Eyes Don’t See
The timeline below shows where the term Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) appears in What the Eyes Don’t See. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 1: What the Eyes Don’t See
The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) and the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) declared the water safe to drink—and people like...
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Chapter 3: The Valedictorian
The MDEQ—the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality—was, in Elin’s estimation, “testing for the results they want[ed]” and...
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Chapter 5: Red Flags
After conversations with a local Flint mother, Miguel realized that the MDEQ wasn’t using corrosion control in the water supply—a violation of federal law. In April 2015,...
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In response to the concerns he raised, the MDEQ simply told Miguel that Flint was under a pre-flushing order—but Miguel knew that even letting...
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Chapter 7: Miasma
...sample had 1,000 ppb, 65 times the federal action level of 15 ppb. But the MDEQ dismissed Marc’s findings.
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...water was corroding metal engine parts in their factory. Even more egregiously, a representative from MDEQ had issued a statement just a month ago urging Flint residents to “relax” about the...
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Chapter 10: Jenny + the Data
Mona got word that Brad Wurfel, the mouthpiece for the MDEQ, was going after Marc Edwards and his research team in the press. Mona was agitated...
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Chapter 13: The Man in the Panda Tie
...done before and after the water switch. But still, the EPA wasn’t taking over from MDEQ, and Marc suggested that the two agencies were actually working together to bury the problem....
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Chapter 17: Meeting the Mayor
...when the mayor spoke up again to say that a meeting with the EPA and MDEQ suggested that there wasn’t a corrosion issue, but simply a problem with many residents’ homes...
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Chapter 20: Splice and Dice
...working right away to undermine and discredit Mona’s findings. Brad Wurfel, the spokesman for the MDEQ, released a statement saying that everything in Flint was fine. He painted Mona as an...
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...school, Mona received a call from Andy and Senator Ananich, who told her that the MDHHS’s press department was claiming that the Hurley data had been “spliced and diced.” The accusation...
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Chapter 22: Demonstration of Proof
Later, when Mona’s FOIA requests went through and the MDHHS emails became public, Mona would learn that the state had doubled down and gone on...
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...Genesee County Health Department declared a public health emergency. Nick Lyon, a higher-up with the MDHHS, was planning a news conference. Andy called Mona to tell her that the state was...
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...with elevated blood-lead levels—according to Mona’s research and the state’s. Dan Wyant, the head of MDEQ, stepped forward to outline an action plan—but Mona felt that the plan was empty and...
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Chapter 23: All the Things We Found Out Later
...were taken and red flags were ignored. But what was clear was that while the MDHHS had done an analysis of spiking blood-lead levels back in 2015, they dismissed and covered...
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Chapter 24: Fire Ant
...mayor, Eden, and Nick at the podium, an “onslaught of misinformation and lies” began. The MDEQ blamed the high water-lead levels in the schools on school fixtures—then Nick announced that throughout...
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Chapter 25: Truth and Reconciliation
...“security gizmos,” and then Rick Snyder entered with a “posse” including the Lieutenant Governor and MDHHS director Nick Lyon. The governor apologized to Mona—but by this point, Mona only cared about...
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In April, a lot was happening in Flint—people at the MDEQ like Brad Wurfel and Dan Wyant were losing their jobs or resigning, and there were...
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