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Documents cast light on Sebring water ‘blame game’
Former official felt ‘hung out to dry’
By Ed Runyan
SEBRING
James Bates says the Sebring water crisis, which came about just as the Flint, Mich., water crisis reached full bloom, left him “hung out to dry.”
Bates, 62, of Carey Road in Salem, was convicted Friday of one count of violating the state’s drinking water regulations and sentenced to 200 hours of community service and a $500 fine but no jail time.
His trial, which would have begun today, was shaping up as a blame game. Who was responsible for Sebring water customers not being notified promptly of high lead levels in the drinking water – Bates or the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency?
The high lead levels were discovered in routine water testing in Sebring and Beloit homes in August and September 2015.
Exposure to high lead levels may cause anemia and damage to the kidneys and brain, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. It is especially dangerous for developing and unborn babies. Even low-level exposures in developing babies has been found to affect behavior and intelligence, the CDC says.
Bates’ attorney, John Juhasz, said during a hearing last January that Bates’ defense against the charges was that OEPA official Chris Maslo told Bates to “wait until he heard back or was not given any instructions at all” regarding send out notices to the public.
Attorneys for the state argued that the Ohio drinking- water laws put the responsibility for notifying the public squarely on the shoulders of the “operator of record,” which was Bates.
Outside of Friday’s hearing, Bates told The Vindicator he didn’t send the notices by the deadlines because Maslo told him in early October not to until OEPA “paperwork” arrived.
Bates said he thinks the paperwork was related to the testing results, but it never came. The next time notifications were discussed was Dec. 3, after he already had missed the deadlines, Bates said.
Maslo was on the witness list for the trial.
He felt he was “hung out to dry” because of Maslo’s instructions and because he had no experience in collecting water samples and no experience in sending out notifications about high lead levels, despite his more than 30 years in the business.
Kate Hanson, public information officer for the Ohio Attorney General’s Office, which prosecuted the case, was asked about Bates’ remarks about Maslo.
“He pled guilty and was convicted,” she said of Bates. “We defer to the plea of no contest and court finding him guilty.”
One Ohio newspaper called Sebring’s water problem a “little Flint,” a reference to a lead crisis in that Michigan city’s drinking water. The Sebring situation raised the ire of several local legislators, including state Rep. John Boccieri of Poland, D-59th, and state Sen. Joe Schiavoni of Boardman, D-33rd.
U.S. Rep Tim Ryan of Howland, D-13th, even called for the resignation of OEPA Director Craig Butler for his agency’s failure to act on Sebring’s lead problem sooner.
The Ohio Legislature later changed notification rules, giving water systems two days to notify the public after learning of high lead levels. Before they had 30 to 60 days.
A Sept. 25, 2015, OEPA document obtained by The Vindicator documents written communication between Maslo and Bates regarding the water samples.
In the letter, Maslo advised Bates against collecting additional samples and instead “addressing/implementing” changes at the treatment plant to bring the lead readings down.
On Sept. 30, 2015, Bates wrote to Rick Giroux, Sebring village manager, explaining that the Sebring water department had “just barely passed” in testing for lead over the past 22 years but failed the most recent set and “we will be required to do a public notice for the whole system” and change the water chemistry at the treatment plant to correct it.
The next document addressing the issue appears to be one Maslo wrote Dec. 3, 2015, to Giroux saying the OEPA had “received and reviewed” a report from the Sebring water department showing high lead levels from June through September 2015.
It said that “by Nov. 29, 2015, you should have [posted] the public education materials” regarding the problem in a “public place” in various buildings and distributed the information “to every person served by the [water] system.”
A Jan. 15, 2016, letter from Maslo to Giroux says, “We understand you are currently working on completing” the notification to all Sebring water customers and asks that Sebring officials complete it “immediately.”
By that time, the Flint lead crisis was a top national story with the state of Michigan and the Obama administration both declaring a state of emergency.