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Editor's note: The water crisis in Sebring was voted as the No. 4 news story of the year by the Morning Journal staff.
LISBON -- A case of contaminated water in a Mahoning County village raised national attention and put Ohio residents and legislators on high alert for water quality in 2016, leading to stricter requirements for public water systems.
Although elevated levels of copper and lead were found in the Village of Sebring's water in the summer of 2015, the public -- including Sebring water customers -- were not notified until January of 2016.
As would be expected, residents and legislators wanted answers for why there was such a delay between the time the elevated levels were found at several testing locations and when the public was notified.
A flurry of investigations was launched, specifically targeting the village and the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency.
According to previous reports, just weeks after the announcement that the water was found to be contaminated, state Rep. John Boccieri, a Democrat from Poland, asked the Ohio House to subpoena Ohio EPA Director Craig Butler in relation to the EPA's involvement in the Sebring water crisis.
Butler was appointed to that position by Gov. John Kasich.
Around the same time that Boccieri requested a subpoena, U.S. Congressman Tim Ryan (D-13th District) called for Butler's resignation, claiming that state officials knew of the contamination prior to the public notification but apparently did nothing to protect the public in the meantime.
However, the EPA had urged village officials to notify the public several times, according to a Jan. 28 report from the Journal's news partner, WKBN news channel 27.
Butler remains the EPA director, and as of Dec. 3, the Associated Press reported that one of the two EPA employees fired as a result of the water crisis has been re-employed.
The employees, Ken Baughman and his supervisor Julie Spangler, were fired in February for not providing timely and accurate information to the agency's field office with regards to Sebring's water.
The rehiring this month of Spangler is the result of a settlement reached after she filed an appeal of her firing.
According to the AP report, Spangler had been an enforcement supervisor but will now work as an environmental specialist.
Also fired as a result of the water crisis was James Bates, who was serving as the Sebring water plant superintendent at the time.
Bates was fired shortly after the contamination announcement, and in July the Ohio Attorney General's Office filed charges against him, claiming that he had failed to alert homeowners where the tests were conducted within the required 30 days, and also missed a 60-day deadline to notify village residents.
The attorney general's office said it filed the charges at the request of the state EPA.
Bates, 61, of Salem, pleaded not guilty during an arraignment in late July to the three misdemeanor criminal charges of non-compliance with drinking water notification rules.
He is scheduled to appear for a pretrial on Feb. 9 in the Mahoning County Court in Sebring before Judge Diane Vittori.
The charges came just one month after Kasich signed House Bill 512, which required public water systems to alert residents within two days after lead is found at the tap.
The law was the result of efforts from several legislators pushing for a shorter notification time frame, and was introduced by state Rep. Tim Ginter, a Republican from Salem.
House Bill 512 was signed by the governor at the South Side Middle School in Columbiana in June, and Ginter presented a signed copy of the bill to the Columbiana Board of Education in late October.