very -- everything was based on bribe and double dealing. what this shows is this is nothing new, what's happening is that the romanian population has grown up and become far more sophisticated and is demanding clean government. it is its number one demand. >> sunday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span's q & a. every election cycle, we're reminded how important it is for citizens to be informed. >> to me, c-span is a home for political junkies and a way to track the government. >> it's a great way for us to stay informed. >> there are a lot of c-span fans on the hill. they will say i saw you on c-span. >> there's so much more that c-span does to make sure people know what's going on. our next segment will deal with the crisis in the water supply that's going on in flint,

michigan. you may remember that earlier the house held a hearing taking a look at the specific issue and specifically representative cummings making statements about what's going on in the situation. here is what he had to say. >> they are struggling. they have come up over here -- all way here from flint. i don't know how they got here. i guess on a bus. but the fact that they are here. you know what, mr. greg? and mr. chairman, they are also americans. they are also americans, just like you and just like your children. and i don't -- i want to be real, real, real clear. the chairman will bear me out on this. i don't care whether it's epa, whether it's local, whether it's state, i want everybody who is responsible for this fiasco to be held accountable. i'm not protecting anybody! because that's not our job!

we are the last line of defense! and if we don't do it, nobody is going to do it! >> one of the people testifying in that hearing, joining us now, is mark edwards with virginia tech university. he is the environmental water resources engineering professor. also a member of the flint water interagency coordinating committee. dr. edwards, good morning. >> thank you for having me. >> could you talk about the situation in flint and how you became involved in it? >> well, we became involved when a mother who determined that her child had been lead poisoned from drinking water exposure gave us a call and asked us to sample her water. so we did that. and we gave our data to an epa employee. he wrote a memo up that said that flint was not being protected by federal law. they weren't following the law. and that children in the city were as risk. this memo was covered up in july

of this year. it was only after the state michigan department of environmental quality in a meeting with flint residents bragged about the fact that they had handled it, and that frankly, no one was going to be helping flint helping the flint residents, that we dropped everything and tried to even the odds on behalf of flint residents so they could find out the truth about their drinking water and we collaborated with them and found the high lead throughout the whole city. >> you and your students would run tests on this water. what kind of levels are we talking about? >> well, they got as high as two times hazardous waste levels, landfills had about 13,200 parts per billion. the world health organization says ten is max. we had during our sampling randomly around the city levels as high as 1500 parts per billion. in general, through this random

sampling we found that the lead in the water was about twice the federal standard, but when you sample to meet the law, you are supposed to be finding the worst case homes so it was a bad situation. there's no question about it. >> you just returned from flint, michigan. what's the status so far? have things improved? >> oh, my, yeah. our recent sampling has shown that the lead levels probably are about three, four times lower than they were this august when incidents developed, blood level was rising in many flint neighborhoods and finally this collection of outsiders got kids out of harm's way. they changed the water supply back to detroit, they have had an extra inhibitor to the water, and we still need to do additional sampling to confirm that things are indeed better, but probably the water's never been better than it's been in like the last two years. it's just no one trusts the water at this point.

no one in flint trusts either state or federal employees with what they're telling them. so it's going to be a hard road back. >> ultimately who's to blame for this and are those people or groups trying to make things right? >> there's really a lot of blame to go around, but certainly the michigan department of environmental quality, they are the policemen, the environmental policemen we pay to protect us from this problem so that it would never happen. certainly they dropped the ball completely. they were assisted unfortunately by regional administrator of epa, susan hedman, who knew about this problem in february 2015 and helped cover it up and that's why people are just so upset is we have released our freedom of information act request e-mails and people realize that government failed them in every level. these agencies, the civil servants we pay to protect us from the state and federal government just worked overtime to not do their job.

it's very disconcerting. >> our guest joining us to talk about the water supply and the situation that went on in flint, michigan at the lead of discovering what was going on, mark edwards from virginia tech university. if you want to ask questions, 202-748-8001 for republicans, 748-8000 for democrats. a special line this morning for flint, michigan residents. if you want to ask questions about the water supply and its condition with this guest, 202-seven 48-8003. what's the long term effect of drinking that kind of lead on the human body? >> well, lead adversely affects every system in the human body. of course its effects are most profound on children but it's bad for adults too. there's no safe level of lead exposure for adults or children. so it's very concerning. they also had the problems with the leaks. the water was eating up both the publicly owned pipes and the pipes in people's houses and

then there's the legionella outbreak appear deaths associated with that which were very very likely tied to the drinking water. >> you are a member of the interagency coordinating committee for flint. what's your role going to be? >> on that particular committee it's a group of experts trying to figure out how to go forward from the state perspective. governor snyder made it very, very clear he wants to get this problem fixed not just the short term like getting the water better, but improving flint's infrastructure and also trying to improve its economy. so the interagency task force for the state is going to be looking at that very very carefully and essentially how to re-engineer flint's systems so that it's stable and safe for a few decades into the future. >> would the best approach be to replace all the main water pipes into the city all together? >> well, obviously that would be the best approach but it's also very very costly.

then you also have to deal with the lead pipes. like what's going to happen with the lead pipes and there's been a little bit of interplay bipartisan ping-pong on how to best deal with the lead pipes. with each iteration i think we are getting a more efficient and smarter solution. i have been really pleased with the back and forth about where the lead pipe issue's heading. just this week, i think there was consensus on how to deal with that issue. >> what's the consensus? >> i think everyone agrees they want the lead pipes out of the ground. one of the big problems we have is that no one knows where these lead pipes are. it's going to take years to kind of figure out where they are because essentially you have to dig up a hole in the ground, each part of the city, to determine what the pipe is made of. in addition, there's also a lot of galvanized pipe in the system as well. in the long term, surprisingly the galvanized pipe is probably a bigger problem than the lead

pipe because the corrosion control of the lead pipe really does a good job, but over the years, these galvanized iron pipes which go into people's houses have sponged up so much lead that they are a huge lead reservoir and because of the corrosion control doesn't do as good a job of keeping the lead on the galvanized pipe, we have to figure out a way to deal with that. so we are thinking about ways of cleaning those galvanized pipes and lining them with epoxy as a long term solution. so it's been fascinating to think about how to upgrade this infrastructure. >> we have people wanting to talk to you about this issue. let's go first to alex, lake charles, louisiana, independent line. you are on with dr. marc edwards of virginia tech. go ahead. >> caller: excellent. can you hear me? >> yes, i can. >> caller: great. so i guess doctor, you know more than anybody that this is far from an isolated incident, the tragedy in flint, michigan. so i was just curious as to your

opinion, what role has maybe the systematic efforts by state and local government to segregate neighborhoods in the advent of the overturning of [ inaudible ] v ferguson in 1954 to we have poor black neighborhoods now from local and state government segregating and in a sense, those neighborhoods are now being not paid attention to, especially by city water works and things of that nature. >> well, there's no question these lead pipes are concentrated in neighborhoods that tend to be poorer. everything is conspiring against the poor in terms of lead in water exposure. they are very likely to be using infant formula which is by far the highest risk of exposure, less likely to breast feed for economic reasons, and also they are less likely to be able to afford bottled water and filters.

i think this is definitely environmental justice issue and how the epa has allowed this to spin out of control like they have, we have been screaming about the cheating that's been going on in terms of lead monitoring in the u.s. for about ten years, and epa office of water has just turned a blind eye. i sat in meetings where they talked about cheating and it's just absurd that so many people in this country are being told that their water meets federal standards when it doesn't. it's being gamed low when they collect the samples for testing and it's high when people drink the water. i think this is something we have to address and there's no doubt its health effects are much, much worse in poor neighborhoods for the reasons i mentioned. >> ft. worth, texas, democrats line, larry up next. >> caller: good morning. thanks for c-span. my question is why is there no criminal liability being

assessed against the emergency manager appointed by governor rick snyder who switched the water supply from lake huron to the flint river? and all this talk about the epa to me seems to be a smokescreen once again to try to blame the president and people in washington for actions taken by state officials that are only concerned with one thing and that's money. thank you. >> well, regardless of what you think about the emergency manager and personally, i'm not in favor of the emergency manager, i think it's un-american, but the reality is if you look at this from a science and engineering perspective, the emergency manager is not someone who makes decision about corrosion control. all of these problems are related to the fact that a state civil servant at mdq did not follow federal law. they did not require the corrosion control to be put in the water. and all these problems, the leaks, the lead, the legionella,

came from that fact. and it was backed up by the epa so this is not a decision that's made by the mayor of flint, the emergency manager or the governor. this is a very specialized skill and we have civil servants paid to make sure the law is followed and that didn't happen. the emergency manager did not make this decision that triggered all these problems. >> san antonio, texas, larry is up next with our guest marc edwards from virginia tech. republican line. you're on. go ahead. >> caller: when the story first came out it sounded like it was a water supply that was the problem but lately i have been hearing stories where one house would have a problem and the house next door would not have a problem. so i need some clarification. is the problem the water supply or is it the individual pipes going to the houses? >> okay. it's a combination of corrosive water plus lead in plumbing materials. if your house has no lead pipe going to it connecting your

house to the water main, or you have no lead materials in your house, even though the water's corrosive it might be eating your pipes up, there's no lead going into the water. so it depends. you have to have lead in your plumbing to get lead in the water. there's no lead in the water leaving the treatment plant or that comes to the water main in front of the house. at the same time, it's the corrosive water that's eating the pipes up. had the water not been corrosive the lead would have stayed on the pipes and out of the water so it's both. >> dr. edwards we hear about the filtering systems, whether they are done out -- installed on the line or done outside. are they sufficient enough to filter out at least levels of lead to the point where water is drinkable? >> well, they are. they have to be installed at the end of your kitchen faucet. that's the only way you can be sure it's going to remove all the lead. if you install a whole house filter in the water, a big filter that comes into your house, the water is going to pick up lead from your indoor

plumbing. so there's lead solider, lead in brass, so the whole house filters are not nearly as effective as the filters, the $20 filters you put on the end of your faucet. >> baltimore, maryland. walter, independent line, you're next. >> caller: thank you. good morning, c-span. thank you, sir, for your assistance in bringing to light the poisoning of an entire city by the republican administration of michigan. i deny you the emergency manager made the decision to switch to save $14 million, sir, and this clown was then passed over to detroit to destroy the detroit school system is outrageous. sir, i need you to answer just one fact. how much more in this country

has been -- is being destroyed by the effort to save pennies and destroying millions and millions of people? if you have any knowledge on how many other localities are being poisoned from virginia to baltimore, maryland through the united states, if you have any idea of your assessment on the poisoning of millions to save pennies. plea please, sir. >> well, i understand the anger at this emergency manager issue but the reality is that the emergency manager did not make this decision to not follow federal law or add the corrosion inhibitor. if the corrosion inhibitor had been in the water and we have shown this in our experiments in the lab, the switch to flint river would have been deemed a success today. we wouldn't have had any of these problems. they would have saved money and yes, i mean, i don't think even the decision was made to save money. i mean, adding a corrosion

inhibitor to the water is the smartest economic decision you will ever make. for each dollar you spend on inhibitor you typically spend $10 and in flint's case for each dollar they would have spent, they would have saved $10,000. so i think it probably started in oversight. again, this is such an important and specialized skill, we have civil servants who are there to make sure the law is followed and it wasn't. so that's the reality of the situation. that's what the e-mails have shown and i realize people are angry about it and i get that. >> hollis is in vero beach, florida, democrats line. hi. >> caller: hi. i want to talk about infrastructure. when this all happened, i got so mad, a whole city is poisoned and they are still going through it? i don't know why a whole army of plumbers isn't there right now fixing the pipes, removing all the lead pipes and removing all the pipes and just putting in a

whole new set. >> well, the simple reason that they're not doing that right now is first off, they need a strategy that can be employed throughout the whole city. secondly, they don't even know where all the lead pipes are at this time. it's shocking. they just went through their records of the city and they mapped where the lead pipes were based on the records, and two weeks ago, they checked out how accurate those records were, and they looked at 100 homes and there was only 20% accuracy in the records. i'm not talking 20% error. they went to 100 homes they thought had a lead pipe. only 20 had a lead pipe. this is the situation we are facing all over the united states. no one kept track of where these lead pipes are. even if you had an army of plumbers out there tomorrow, first you got to find the lead pipes. secondly, this is not something that just anyone can do. you are digging up the street. you are making sure, trying to avoid natural gas lines so you don't create explosion, you are trying to avoid fiberoptic

cables, you are trying -- there is sewer lines running right next to the lead service line. so this is not just something any plumber can do. it requires a very, very specialized skill set. now, they do have this team from lancing who has had the greatest success in replacing lead service lines in the country and they are going to bring their expertise into flint and figure out a way to also take care of these galvanized iron pipes which are perhaps even a bigger problem than the lead service lines. so this is not as easy as it sounds, not as simple as i've got a leak in my house, call the plumber, get it fixed. this is infrastructure issues that's underground, requires very specialized skill sets and if we knew where the lead pipes were, we would have a chance to get rid of them all in a year but it's going to take two or three years to find out even where all the lead pipes are. >> walk us through how many levels of filtration there are between taking water in from a source like the river to the point it reaches a household? >> in general for flint, they

actually have two or three. so the first is the water comes in from the river and they do particle removal by settling. there's a big swimming pool that just lets the particles sink out. then they have a normal filter, then they also have a granular activated carbon filter to clean out any other contaminants. they actually have three sort of levels of filtration before the water is sent into the distribution system. and then of course some flint residents have filters in their house and at the end of the tap. so in the extreme case you get five levels of filtration in a house in flint today but there's always the three that are employed at the treatment plant. >> even with those steps, you still found the levels you did. >> well, again, the lead is coming from the house. it doesn't matter how clean the water is leaving the treatment plant. if the water is going to eat those pipes up and eat that lead pipe up and lead solder and led brass it's going to contaminate the water with lead. that's what's happening. to get the lead out you need it at the last step.

these are filter ths that go one end of the faucet so there's no chance water would be contaminated after that point. >> marc edwards with virginia tech, environmental and water resources engineering professor, also a member of the flint water interagency coordinating committee in flint, michigan and works in the areas of water treatment, corrosion and arsenic removal as well as other things. if you want to ask a question about what's going on in flint. flint, michigan residents can call in at well, 748-8003. you found similar issues with the water system in washington, d.c. what did you find? how does it compare or contrast to what you are finding in flint? >> it's an interesting comparison because the d.c. lead crisis which occurred from about 2001 to 2004 was very similar. it was caused by a failure to install corrosion control and in this case it was the federal government, runs the entire

system. the federal government runs the treatment plan, they are the primacy agency, they oversee the primacy agency, then of course there's the local water utility, that was selling the water to customers. so once again, it was a complete failure of government but obviously it was more of a failure of federal government in d.c. the d.c. lead issue was about 20 to 30 times worse than what we are seeing in flint in terms of the number of people affected and the amount of exposure, the length of exposure. unfortunately, u.s. centers for disease control came in and wrote a falsified report, they just made up a conclusion that said no one got hurt. of course, that derailed about six congressional investigations, a gao investigation that would have found people and held people accountable, and instead you had this absurd conclusion that no one got hurt. it was like this miracle. people drank all this lead in water, no one got hurt. so the cdc covered it up and it

took six years before we showed in 2009 that thousands of kids were lead poisoned in d.c. but by that point, how are you going to hold people accountable? so the lawsuits in d.c. are still, they have not gone to trial to this day. they might, the five kids left in the lawsuit might have their day in court next summer, maybe. i'll believe it when i see it. by that point they are out of high school. so in d.c., the exposure was 20 or 30 times worse. kids who were hurt got zero. kids got no help. their parents got no help. it is an outrage what the centers for disease control and epa did covering that problem up and had they learned a lesson, had we learned anything from d.c., something like flint never would have happened. but because it was covered up and essentially what they learned is they can get away with anything, another d.c. and flint was inevitable. >> walker, louisiana.

republican line. james is up next. >> caller: good morning. good morning, dr. edwards. happy leap day. dr. edwards, i read your interview in the "chronicle." good to hear you getting your dander up this morning regarding being critical of academic scientists and their funding sources and how they have to toe the line or lose their sources. i was hoping you would be able to say a few words about that. i do want to ask if you trust the climate scientists. thank you very much. >> wow. you know, i do have issues with academia. i feel like i have the greatest job in the world, being a professor. i'm working in a great school, virginia tech, and i guess you criticize what you love. you know, i just look around and i see the pressures being placed on young scientists to get money, to get publications and to not necessarily do good

science that creates new knowledge and that helps people. i want to make sure that we recognize those pressures and that we create an environment where young people can come into science, especially academia, and follow their dreams and feed this virtuous cycle between the public and science which has served us so well for the last 100, 150 years in this country. i really feel to some extent, academia is betraying the public. we are not trustworthy in many cases. yes, unfortunately that does extend to some of the climate scientists. as we saw. i think to some extent, they did a disservice to themselves and their cause by not collaborating with the public and not being completely honest with the public at every opportunity. unfortunately, they kind of shot themselves in the foot by how they behaved. i think as scientists first and

foremost we have to be trustworthy. if we ever lose the trust of the public, we are all going to suffer the consequences. >> from newport, arkansas, independent line, william is up next. >> caller: good morning, little brother. welcome to the apocalypse. i have been in construction all my life and i have dug up water lines and i know exactly what the problem is. the problem is money. we dug up water lines that were made out of wood like a barrel, cypress abandoned then we dug up water lines made out of asbestos and galvanized lines, steel lines, everything. so we have only had these lines in the ground for about 100 years. water lines. same way, we had the same problem with our electricity. we have only been doing this for 100 years. and this year, we are having a debate in congress about our

elected leaders and we are talking about building a wall instead of rebuilding our water lines, our electric lines, our whole infrastructure. and that's the thing that frustrates me. i have always voted as a republican, but we're not even talking about the problems. this is not just flint. this is not just jackson, mississippi. this is not just washington, d.c. >> no, it's not. >> caller: this is the whole nation. every water line. now, it primarily focuses on the poor. if your home is older than 40 years, there's no pvc lines to it. if your subdivision is older than 30 or 40 years, there's no pvc running into it. it's metal or wood or something like that, and you don't really know what you're getting. the new homes are all pvc and they have certain standards. the older homes is where you find the lead and these problems like that. we're talking about every water line in the united states.

every one is suspect. >> william, thanks for your input. >> he pretty much nailed it. it comes down to what are our priorities. we are in the era of declining discretionary funding. you have to decide where you want to spend your money. unfortunately, these pipes are out of sight, out of mind and you can neglect them only so long. as in the case of flint, if you lose your water infrastructure, if you lose your ability to deliver safe water to people for drinking, for cooking, for bathing, civilization as you know it will end. that's sort of what happened in flint. people were leaving flint because they couldn't take a bath safely. so i agree with you 100%. but at the same time, we do have other priorities. a dollar spent on water infrastructure is a dollar less spent on education. this is why we have to have a political debate about what our priorities are. >> in politics, then, the senate approving a deal for $250

million or so to help with flint, michigan. what's the status so far? what will that money help to do in the city? >> you know, i was really disappointed with what was provided because frankly, not much of it is going to help the city. it's going to national programs that in general are supposed to help general with lead poisoning across the country and so i don't even know why it's called the flint bill because so little of the money is actually going to help flint. i'm glad these other people are getting the money, but i'm disappointed in the bill. >> how is it better spent, then? >> well, i think if you really want to help flint, the money has to be directed to flint. so they need help with their infrastructure, rebuilding their infrastructure. so that would be a higher priority to me than just spreading it around to many different government agencies who frankly i don't even think have flint's best interest at heart. >> why do you say that?

>> because they tend to not take lead exposure from water seriously. they would prefer to spend that money on other things. >> so we have a viewer who asks about the houses, why did some houses have lead pipes or others don't, is this age of the house, different builder, what goes into that? >> several things. first off, what was the law in the city when the house was built. most people don't realize that these lead pipes were put there not because of a choice the customer had, but because it was the code of the city that said fu wa if you want to connect to the city water line at this time, you must use a lead pipe. at certain times that was not the law. if you go back way in time they didn't require lead pipe. it tended to be from 1910 to 1950. after 1950, other types of pipes, the service lines that connect your house to the water main were used. in terms of other homes in flint, on virtually all of them have lead solder or lead and brass unless your plumbing was

stolen from your house or unless you upgraded it after 1986, because it's only after 1986 that the newer lower lead materials were used in your house. >> so for a homeowner if they wanted to find out if they do indeed or not have lead pipes, what's the most efficient way to do that? >> it's horrible because in flint you can go to your basement and have a galvanized pipe coming in. that doesn't mean you don't have a lead pipe in front of your house. the simple answer to your question is there's no way for you to know if you are in the city of flint right now whether you have a lead pipe coming into your house at all, unless you go dig a hole in your yard down to where the lead pipe might be and actually see it by eye. that's the only way to determine if you have a lead pipe or not. >> you couldn't go say for the average homeowner to the local government and ask for some type of pipes or diagrams or something? >> you could ask but you would get the wrong answer. that's the crazy thing. they just went through the records and found out it was 80% wrong. you are on your own. the information you get from

your city is so often wrong, you can't trust what you are being told. >> from clinton township, michigan, this is david for our guest marc edwards of virginia tech. good morning. >> caller: good morning. i would like to -- i appreciate the plumber's comments that was made a little while ago. i think he nailed it pretty much. i googled quite a few articles and there's really good information out there. what i really -- there was phosphates they could have added to the water that would have prevented the lead from leaching through. it's something from what i understand is a common practice but it was not done in flint. >> yeah. yeah. >> caller: that would have been like from what i understand $100 a day for these phosphates, wit would have kept the lead from leaching there, there would never have been a problem at all but they chose not to do that

just to save $100 a day. just a minute ago you were asked why priority really wasn't given to city of flint and i think everyone pretty much knows that flint is poor black people. >> well, you know, first off, you nailed it in terms of the problem. they were getting phosphate on detroit water so the minimum allowable under federal law would have been to continue what they were doing in detroit water and why that wasn't continued for this $100 a day, i have no idea. for people who talk about the fact that flint is predominantly african-american and poor, and they live through this horror which i described as like half 1984, half enemy of the people, it was surreal what flint residents went through. if you lived in flint and you thought this was because you were poor or predominantly african-american, i get that, because if i lived there, i

would have no other explanation for it. however, the same thing happened in washington, d.c. in 2001 to 2004. you can't say washington, d.c. is a powerless city. the lead was high in the u.s. congress. the president was asked twice at press conference whether he was consuming too much lead in his water during the d.c. lead crisis. had i not seen that experience in washington, d.c., i would buy into that, but because a worse lead crisis was perpetrated on the residents of washington, d.c. which you cannot say is a powerless city, you know, i have a different perspective on it than i think most people do. as hard as it is to believe, it's the civil service agencies that are just dropping the ball and failing to learn a lesson from their mistakes. they are incapable of learning from their past mistakes. >> to that stead, what has the

govern or done as far as correcting the mistake? >> the governor since he learned from his own state officials finally in early october the incidents of blood lead had risen in flint's children, he immediately intervened to remove the health threat by distributing bottled water and filters. so really, the health crisis has been over since about october. it's really bad that flint residents can't trust their water for bathing or showering even though it's as safe as other cities we believe right now for those purposes. but i understand. no one's going to trust the water for a long, long time. you can learn to live with lead in drinking water. people in washington, d.c. did. you use the filters, you use bottled water, you are okay. but i must say the governor, i met with him last week and he is very, very committed to getting this fixed for the city of flint. i was at a press conference

where he passed a law that basically gave $30 million of water bill relief to flint residents and that's based on the task force where flint residents asked me to present this to the governor that they shouldn't have to pay for water that they couldn't use and boom, $30 million, you know. some people will say that's not enough. i would also say this about governor snyder. he studied the lead in copper rule to such an extent and asked me questions that were so perceptive, he is really literally one of the top experts in the country at this point on the lead and copper rule. he is committed to getting this fixed not only for the city of flint but for the state of michigan and also for the entire united states and he is also bringing in experts all over the world on how to figure out how to best re-engineer flint's water system. so these are concrete things,

you cannot dispute that he's committed to solving this problem for the city of flint. that's what he said. he's taking action to make that happen and i'm 100% committed to helping people who are going to be part of the solution. >> from nazareth, pennsylvania, republican line, john is up next. >> caller: yeah. good morning. dr. edwards, if you had a crystal ball, what do you foresee in the next five to ten years knowing there are so many problems like just in silver springs, texas, they just turned on their faucet, oil's coming out of it. it's black. >> right. >> caller: i just wanted to ask. i see huge problems in the next few years because it seems like no one cares. it's like we care more about oil than water. we can live without oil but we can't live without water. i just want to know what do you foresee in the next five to ten years if this continues not just in flint, michigan but with the

fracing boom, especially in pennsylvania, that's where it started, not too far from where i live. i just want to ask you a question. what do you foresee in the next five to ten years if nothing gets done, city to city, not just the flint situation but other places where the water's contaminated? >> what's so discouraging -- disconcerting about all these problems is that we have laws to stop these things from happening. if we follow the federal lead and copper rule, what happened in flint would not have occurred. what happened in washington, d.c. would not have occurred. what's happening in jackson would not have occurred. so it just makes me so angry that we as a society have spent the money, passed laws that said we want clean water, we have civil servants out there who are supposed to be protecting us and the laws are not being followed. so you know, none of us are safe in this country until we get an

environmental protection agency, state primacy agencies and water utilities committed to following existing laws. it's just, it boggles the mind that we have these laws and people think it's optional whether to follow it or not. i don't get it. >> detroit, michigan, albert is up next. >> caller: yes. i want to say before we get too deep in the conversation, i want the discussion to stay focused. first of all, i lived in flint for over 70 years. i just moved to detroit two years ago. now, this guy here is on the advisory board. let me tell you, snyder is doing what they call p.r., public relations. first of all, snyder knew about this problem over two years ago when they was getting brown water. now, this guy can say whatever he wants to say about snyder doing this and that.

snyder hasn't done anything. what they're doing, they're passing the blame on the epa, on every other thing in the city that they can blame or in the government, but snyder didn't decide to do anything until they decided they were going to recall him and this stuff went national. he is putting emergency manager over just about every black city here in the state of michigan. this is done by design. he should be charged with murder. this guy won't even talk about that. you tell me where in the city they're doing something right now. all they're doing is having meetings and discussing solutions. you can't even sell the houses in flint. in order to repair this, you got to go all into the drywall and everything else in the house. >> albert, since you put a lot

out there for our guest to consider, let him answer. >> well, i get the anger of flint residents and residents in detroit, for that matter. what happened in flint was unacceptable. it was half 1984, half enemy of the people. it was surreal. we went to flint. we videotaped flint residents being arrested at that tiown me for complaining about their water. but i guess what i will say is these civil servants were bipartisan in who they misled. the mayor took a lot of blame for what happened as well. he was voted out of office. i saw the e-mails where he was misled by susan hedman. he actually asked her is there anything to mr. del torro's memo that said flint was not being protected by federal law. the mayor asked the right question, should we be doing something. susan hedman, the top cop, environmental cop in the region, apologized to mr. walling for

that memo. and said the state will be getting back to her and she basically cut an agreement with the state to let them have their way with flint's children and the future of flint. so read the e-mails yourself. we posted the freedom of information act request e-mails online. these core civil servants who are paid to do this job, were truly bipartisan in who they misled, they misled a democratic mayor, they misled a republican governor and you know, certainly the mayor and the governor deserve blame. but primarily that blame is they were overly trusting of the very people paid to protect us. so they have also apologized. that's something i haven't heard from the u.s. epa for what they did in washington, d.c. or in flint. and again, i am 100% against any bad actors. i will work overtime to stop bad actors but anyone who wants to be part of the solution, i will

try to back them up 100%. >> flint water study.org is where people can find information? >> that's correct. >> dr. marc edwards joining us to talk about the situation in flint, michigan. not only from his stance as a professor at virginia tech but also serving on the council taking a look at this issue. dr. edwards, thanks for your time. >> thanks for having me. c-span's "washington journal" live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. coming up tomorrow morning, david drucker from the washington examiner joins us to talk about super tuesday voting, the states involved, the candidates and what the results could mean for the election. then irs tax payer advocate nina olson will take your calls and questions about your filings options and this year's tax topi topics. be sure to watch "washington journal" live beginning at 7:00 a.m. eastern tomorrow morning. join the discussion. the presidential race moves forward now with super tuesday. all eyes are on 12 states as the

republican and democratic candidates try to increase their delegate count. right now, hillary clinton has a large lead over her democratic opponent, senator bernie sanders, with 544 delegates. donald trump currently leads the republican field with 82. >> at washington post.com this is the headline of the republican party's implosion over donald trump's candidacy has arrived. joining us from atlanta, georgia is robert costa, who is following the story for this super tuesday eve. thanks very much for being with us. >> great to join you. >> any time you have the first sentence of your story including the word implosion and questions among the republican leadership whether they can come together this election year spells trouble for the gop. can you explain? >> it's a significant and historic moment within the republican party, unlike anything i have seen in the post-george w. bush era.

total chaos and division between the grassroots conservatives who are backing donald trump, who are unhappy about illegal immigration, and the more elite side of the party, the establishment elected officials and donors who are horrified at the trump ascendancy and they are now at odds with each other deep into the presidential process, and we are watching in realtime as a major american political party implodes on itself. >> we covered senator marco rubio who is joined by south carolina governor nikki haley who said the candidacy of donald trump remains scary, yet over the weekend, the endorsement by alabama senator jeff sessions supporting donald trump. so are some in the establishment now admitting that trump is the presumptive republican nominee? >> the sessions endorsement for trump was significant because sessions is the heart and soul of the populist right within the republican party so a hardliner

on trade and immigration. he's very much in line with trump's own position. more striking was the recent endorsement of new jersey governor chris christie of trump, and he is one of several major establishment figures more centrist part of the party that's gravitating towards trump. the key question for many top republicans right now is how to handle the trump phenomenon. some say it's the future of the party and they might as well get behind it, understand it and maybe even support trump. others say it will totally tear the party apart if trump wins the nomination and like senator rubio, who i covered here today, he has vowed to fight until the end of the nomination process to try to stop trump. we have also seen a sitting u.s. senator, the freshman from nebraska, say we not back trump if trump won the nomination. it is just a brawl that is unlike anything i have seen. >> the rubio super pac out with

a new ad that is using the words of donald trump, his interview yesterday on cnn's "state of the union with jake tapper" and the fact that donald trump would not refute the endorsement of david duke and talk about him as a former grand wizard of the kkk, trump said that he has disavowed his association with david duke but has the damage been done, or is donald trump the teflon candidate where nothing seems to stick? >> he has been the teflon candidate for nearly a year. i mean, ever since he started flirting with a presidential bid last spring, he has said so many things that would usually doom a national candidate and he has not only survived, but thrived. trump has insisted he disavowed duke last week at a news conference. he has continued to disavow duke since then but because he wavered on sunday, some establishment foes of trump sense an opportunity, an opportunity to attack trump as someone who is far too close to racist elements and former kkk leaders like david duke.

it just doesn't seem to be sticking to this unconventional candidate. >> robert costa, let's talk about not only tomorrow but march 15th, because if the polls are accurate, senator ted cruz will win his home state of texas, but in florida, early polling showing that senator marco rubio is way behind candidates including donald trump. so if senator rubio does not win his home state in two weeks, does that mean he's out of this race? >> it likely means he's in a very difficult position. rubio people believe that he can accumulate enough delegates to fight on to a convention in the summer in cleveland, but rubio eventually likely has to win some states. the problem for rubio and cruz is that they are both countering each other. there's the thought in the cruz camp that if cruz wins texas, he will stay in the race and fight on and rubio, if he wins florida, will do the same and they both haven't really been able to storm forward and assert

themselves as the chief trump foe. i think more pressure on super tuesday is on cruz. he has to win texas and more than just by a couple points to really assert himself as someone who is in this race, in the top tier. >> where does that put ohio governor john kasich, who has been spending a lot of his time in massachusetts and vermont, hoping to pick up some wins up there tomorrow? >> the kasich candidacy got a jolt out of new hampshire by coming in second but ever since then, it's kind of floated away. kasich is putting all of his chips on his home state of ohio. and the pathway for kasich according to people close to him is if rubio is for some reason unable to win florida on march 15th but kasich finds a way to win ohio on the same day, he could make the case to the party center, to the establishment, that he's more viable, that he was able to win a state and rubio has not been able to do so if that's the way it unfolds. it's a moving chess match. a three-tiered, three-dimensional chess match going on, all these different

candidates having overlapping strategies, each contingent on the other. >> robert costa, you cover politics. let's talk about some key senate races because clearly the senate republican leader mitch mcconnell has got to look at this with some sense of alarm because he has such a narrow majority in the u.s. senate right now and a number of key states, ohio, pennsylvania, new hampshire, minnesota, where republican senators are on tough re-election battles. >> the map is looking more gloomy by the day for senate republicans and especially when you consider that many of the current incumbents were elected in 2010 and that was a tea party wave for the gop, and in states like pennsylvania, with pat toomey and illinois, those are states that are almost blue these days, if not purple. those went for republicans by narrow margins in a very republican year. now in a presidential election year when democratic turnout is traditionally much higher, the thought that toomey and kirk and others in more democratic states

could survive and weather a trump nomination, that has created a lot of depression within capitol hill and some of the offices i stopped by earlier this week. there's a thought that if trump does move forward, the gop either has to disavow him or that the candidates may try to adapt some of trump's policies, copy his populism, pugnacity and positions on trade but try to shy away from his controversies. >> i want to talk about the word you used, the implosion on donald trump's candidacy. how did that come about? >> implosion means a collapse inward, a collapse upon itself. when you look at the republican party, it's not exploding. it's not going everywhere and having collateral damage across the country and across different parties. what you're really seeing is a civil war, a political civil war, an implosion. in all these structures that have been built since george w. bwa