New emails shed light on Flint water crisis

Aides close to Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) and his top lawyers discussed concerns about water quality in Flint and its impact on health as early as October 2014, a full year before the water source was switched back to Detroit and away from the Flint River, according to a review of 550 newly released emails by the Detroit Free Press and Detroit News. I wish I would have asked more questions.

“There’s a failure to cover the financial situation in Flint and the fact they were teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, and they really didn’t have any resources or assets to rely on”, said Muchmore, who departed as the chief of staff last month to become chairman of the government relations and regulatory practice group for the Detroit-based Honigman law firm. In March, after he was forwarded a resident’s threat to city officials about an “environmental racism” lawsuit against the majority-black city, he wrote an email to state officials suggesting potentially buying bottled water to distribute through churches, saying “If we procrastinate much longer in doing something direct we’ll have real trouble”.

— Mike Gadola, Snyder’s chief legal counsel and now an appeals court judge, wrote in October 2014 that using Flint River water was “downright scary”, and noted that his mother lived in the city.

Friday’s document dump by the governor’s office follows previous large email batch releases pertaining to Flint’s ongoing lead-contaminated water crisis on Friday, Feb. 12 and Wednesday, Jan. 20.

“A crime was committed against the children and families of Flint, and the unheeded warnings expressed to this governor, by his own inner circle, are as close to a smoking gun as you can get”, state Democratic Party Chairman Brandon Dillon said in a statement.

“Making the water that comes out of the tap in Flint safe to drink again is the top priority”.

State regulators failed to require Flint to treat river water with anti-corrosion chemicals when its water source was switched in 2014, allowing lead to be scraped from aging pipes and into drinking water. “We shared them”, he said.

The plan will pay for 65 percent of the water portion of the bills.

Snyder said partners will be working with the city of Flint during the next couple weeks to determine how to roll out the $30 million water bill relief plan. But he said Treasury Department officials concluded the cost to reconnect Flint to Detroit water – an extra $1 million per month – was deemed more than the cash-strapped city could afford.