Politicians, spare us your tears for Flint, Mich.

Flint, like most Rust Belt, legacy cities, has been virtually invisible to the nation and to its state government for the last 20 years.

Flint’s water problem — the gradual lead poisoning of children — happened over the course of many months, not overnight.

The remoteness of Michigan government, and its lack of concern with water quality, was allowed to fester for decades.

All that reminds a lot of people of Toledo.

The detachment of our state government relative to OUR water problem — toxicity in Lake Erie — seems eerily comparable.

Flint should create urgency in Ohio and in Toledo. Urgency about water quality. Urgency about Lake Erie — our greatest natural blessing and economic asset.

It SHOULD put Ohio EPA on the defensive and shift the burden of proof to Columbus: What are you doing — actually doing — to protect Toledo’s water quality?

We are now facing another summer with a terribly sick Lake Erie. And one day, this coming summer, or some future one, the algae will hit the fan. Our drinking water will again be at risk.

We have Tom Kovacik, former chief operating officer for the city, and Lynn Sherman former chief chemist for Oregon, warning us that Facility 3 — by virtue of the way the facility was built, and the laws of gravity and nature — is leaking pathogens into our water supply. They remind us also that, under state law, the waste stored in Facility 3, must now be removed.

Yet, all we have heard from Ohio EPA on this matter is a variation of Alfred E. Neuman’s mantra: What, us worry?

We now have another cautionary tale in Sebring — the so called “little Flint.”

“The water going into Sebring is clean. What we experienced in Toledo was more like Flint, a bad water source coming in” — thus spoke Gov. John Kasich from the presidential trail a few days ago.

Great. We have the governor saying, in effect, don’t worry about Sebring. Toledo is more like Flint than Sebring.

Indeed, like Flint, we have “a bad water source.”

Flint had bad water AND bad infrastructure.

Are we sure we do not have both?

The governor went on to say: “But we’ve been all over it, and we’ve handled it appropriately,’”

He was talking about Sebring.

How about Lake Erie?

Is Ohio EPA “all over” the Lake Erie problem?

More like “nowhere to be found.”

What has Ohio EPA done about farm runoff, or Facility 3, or, for that matter, old pipes in northwest Ohio, since our water scare two summers ago?

Or since Flint?

Substantially, nothing.

Mr. Kasich told the press in Iowa: “You’re gonna have things like this happen. They’re happening all over the country now because of the old infrastructure. We deal with it, and we deal with it effectively.”

But we are NOT dealing with it.

We are waiting for the next crisis to happen.

Last summer, the governor promised to — in cooperation with Michigan and Ontario — reduce phosphorus runoff into the Lake Erie western basin by 40 percent over the next 10 years. We have seen no comprehensive plan for making that happen.

We are not “dealing with it” until we act. Until we address the health of Lake Erie itself.

Keith C. Burris is a columnist for The Blade. Contact him at: kburris@theblade.com or 419-724-6266.

First Published February 18, 2016, 5:00 a.m.