COLUMBUS, Ohio - The Ohio EPA has fired two employees and demoted another employee as part of its investigation into why it took months before customers of the Sebring Water System were notified of higher than acceptable levels of lead found in seven homes.

According to a news release from the Ohio EPA issued on Wednesday, the agency terminated two employees in its Central Office and demoted one employee at its Northeast District Office following an administrative review of the situation.

The internal review concluded that an Ohio EPA Central Office employee responsible for sending laboratory results from the Central Office failed to ensure that data was provided to the field office to help them conduct their review. The EPA says this a critical step to help field staff determine if excessive lead levels had occurred so that appropriate notice to residents and/or enforcement actions could be taken.

That employee is being terminated for nonperformance, according to the EPA. The employee’s supervisor is also being terminated for not properly managing an employee who had an existing record of performance issues and not providing appropriate corrective counseling or progressive discipline despite being instructed to do so.

Despite not having received all the necessary data and information and the employee’s failure to provide timely data to the field office, the EPA’s Northeast District Office informed the village of an apparent excessive lead levels on Dec. 3.

In addition, a manager in the Northeast District Office will be demoted for not informing management or agency director Craig Butler when the district informed the village of of the issue on Dec. 3.

Ohio EPA officials say the employee should have informed management of the issue sooner when it became clear that the village wasn’t taking their water review seriously.

State Representative John Boccieri says it's satisfying to finally see individuals being held accountable. He says work has to continue though on finding a solution to what happened.

"This is clearly a broken process, its gotta be fixed," said Boccieri. "I'm calling the Director to help me help others in the legislature who have introduced legislation to tighten this process up so it doesn't happen again," he said.

Boccieri also says he has evidence from a state water testing vendor that the EPA knew about lead contamination in Sebring's water back in August. Ohio EPA Director Craig Butler says that is just not true.

"If Representative Bocierri would understand all of the facets of the lead program, he would understand that it would be impossible for us to say that we had an exceedance situation and knew about it in August," said Butler. "Only until we made this call in December did we have even a shade of enough information because the operator was not providing the right information to us that we unilaterally made this call that there was a lead exceedance," he said.

Butler says he learned on Jan. 21 that Sebring had failed to properly notify its customers of lead levels in certain homes and repeatedly failed to provide timely and accurate information to the Agency’s field office.

The Ohio EPA issued a notice of violation to the village on Jan. 21, requiring that it take corrective action and notify its customers immediately.

The agency also issued emergency orders prohibiting James Bates, the village’s water treatment plant operator, from operating any public water system in Ohio and revoked his license.

The agency also launched a review of the Ohio EPA’s internal protocols and timelinesss to determine why it took until Jan. 21 for Butler to be notified when the actions might have been taken sooner.

As a result of this review, the Ohio EPA says it has has made revisions to its operating procedures involving lead in drinking water to ensure this failure is not repeated.

The agency also has established a new process to provide staff with a direct and expedited communication route to senior Ohio EPA officials of events or situations that are not being addressed that have possible significant environmental and public health consequences.

The agency has sent recommendations to Ohio’s congressional delegation for improvements to federal lead rules, including challenges with the federal timelines for notification.

The agency is preparing recommendations to the Ohio Legislature to make certain the public’s expectations are met when lead is present in drinking water above federal action levels.

Sebring is still offering free water testing for any homeowner who asks and will make those results public as they are received.

The Ohio EPA is telling Sebring water customers that the water coming into the home is healthy and running the tap for several minutes successfully eliminates any detectable lead in the water.

Sebring serves 8,100 water customers in Sebring, Beloit and Maple Ridge.