Snyder lawyer called Flint water ‘scary’ before crisis

Associated Press

LANSING, Mich.

Gov. Rick Snyder’s newest release of state emails and documents related to Flint’s water disaster appears to indicate that his aides’ reluctance to brief him, his own mismanagement – or both – led to delays in addressing the public health threat.

A full year before his administration helped the city reconnect to Lake Huron water after lead contamination was exposed, two top advisers already were advocating the move, citing E. coli and a General Motors plant’s rusting parts. Snyder’s chief legal counsel even told the chief of staff that using Flint River water was “downright scary.”

Yet the Republican governor insists those specific warnings – weeks before his re-election – were never given directly to him, and state officials decided then that it would cost too much to rejoin Detroit’s system.

With documents revealing such discussions in Snyder’s inner circle, even the governor’s allies acknowledge how badly the issue seems to have been handled.

“The right people were raising the right issues, they were sounding the alarms,” said John Truscott, a public-relations strategist who was the spokesman for former GOP Gov. John Engler. “Why wasn’t it followed through on?”

Snyder has apologized but refused to resign over his administration’s role in the water crisis. The tainted water has left children with elevated lead levels, which have been linked to learning disabilities and other problems. He also has reassigned top spokespeople and fired regulators that a task force concluded were responsible for not deploying corrosion controls after the April 2014 switch, which let lead leach from aging pipes into some homes.

“We didn’t connect all the dots that I wish we would have,” Snyder said Friday in Flint, where he signed into law $30 million in state aid to partially cover the water bills of residents and businesses going back about two years. “That’s where I’m kicking myself every day.”

The newly released emails, which the governor was not required to make public but did so under pressure from the media, detail how Snyder failed to get a handle on the crisis over the course of a year.

In October 2014, deputy legal counsel Valerie Brader emailed other top Snyder officials asking to request that Flint’s state-appointed emergency manger return to buying water from Detroit’s water system. She alluded to problems with a carcinogenic disinfectant byproduct, known as trihalomethane – 21/2 months before the public was notified.

Chief legal counsel Mike Gadola quickly responded, telling chief of staff Dennis Muchmore and others that using Flint River water was “downright scary” and noting that his mother lived in the city. “Nice to know she’s drinking water with elevated chlorine levels and fecal coliform,” he said, adding, “They should try to get back on the Detroit system as a stopgap ASAP before this thing gets too far out of control.”