Newly released government emails show federal environmental and health officials knew about complaints of rashes cropping up in Flint, Mich., as far back as May 2014, one month after the city left the Detroit water system and began using Flint River water as its drinking source.
Michigan's health department and federal agencies did not start a formal investigation into residents' rashes until February of this year.
This latest crop of released emails related to the water crisis adds to the mountain of paper and correspondence showing government officials often preoccupied with image and procedure while Flint residents complained of rashes and water that smelled foul, looked discolored and was later determined to contain poisonous levels of lead.
The batch of emails released Thursday as well as those released in the past several weeks provide a new road map on how federal officials responded to problems with Flint's water reported directly to them in May 2014.
A Flint resident spoke with Jennifer Crooks, the Michigan program manager for drinking water at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's regional office in Chicago, according to an email.
"He and many people have rashes from the new water. He said his doctor says the rash is from the new drinking water," Crooks wrote in an email to Mindy Eisenberg.
Eisenberg was the chief of the protection branch in EPA’s Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water in 2014, according to online EPA documents. Later in the email, Crooks said she told the resident to bring his concerns to Michigan Department of Environmental Quality officials, but the man said he didn't trust the state.
Later that month, another EPA official spoke to the same resident.
"Rashes can be caused by other changes in water chemistry due to the change in source waters, but the first step would be to rule out regulated contaminants," wrote Thomas Poy, also an EPA official.
In June 2014, Crooks revisited the issue, sending out a briefing on the issue to state and federal authorities.
"There have been numerous complaints to the Region 5 Ground Water and Drinking Water Branch regarding the drinking water, including rotten-egg smell, swamp-water smell, people developing rashes," Crooks wrote June 20 to EPA and state environmental officials. Her findings included a determination that the Flint River's "raw water is a different quality and more variable than Lake Huron raw water that Detroit is using."
Her conclusion based on test results from the state found some "detects of regulated contaminants" including trihalomethanes, a by-product of the chlorine disinfectants added to the water to kill the bacteria. But the levels found apparently were not considered above acceptable levels, called or exceedances. She asked whether the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention might be able to assist.
"Although the analytical testing does not indicate the presence of chemicals that appear to be a health concern, the fact that their raw water is coming from a new source raises questions about the other constituents that have not been evaluated," Mark Johnson, a regional director for the CDC's Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, wrote June 20, 2014, to other federal officials. In a subsequent email, Johnson passes along a response from a CDC official who suspects the rashes could be a result of water's pH.
It is unclear from the emails what steps state and federal officials took after those discussions. CDC officials said they could not respond Thursday but would as soon as possible.
The EPA did not respond to a specific request for comment about the emails but issued a news release about the agency's ongoing work in Flint.
"The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services and CDC public health specialists have been contacting residents to learn more about their skin rash conditions and evaluate medical information," the EPA wrote Thursday, adding that the agency planned to increase its water testing next week. "The goal of this skin rash investigation ... is to identify specific public health interventions to mitigate rash illness. The investigation is expected to be completed in late April or early May."
General Motors' rejection
Other emails focused on the effect of one of Flint's largest employers leaving the city water system in 2014.
The government emails reveal that a top Michigan Department of Environmental Quality official had concerns that General Motors' rejection of Flint water for use in its auto plant could put the department in “an awkward spot” related to its decisions on Flint drinking water.
"On review, let's be really careful on this," Brad Wurfel, former environmental department spokesman, wrote to department officials poised to answer questions from reporters about the quality of Flint River water, which also was being used as a drinking water source.
GM's decision in October 2014 to switch off city water in favor of Flint Township water, which came from Detroit, is now seen a major red flag that missed. At the time, the automaker said it was concerned that high chloride levels in the treated water would cause corrosion.
On Oct. 15, 2014, top Michigan environmental officials discussed Flint water in a string of emails. In one of those emails, Wurfel wrote to other department officials that “GM's announcement has potential to put us in an awkward spot with respect to decisions Flint needs to make on its own."
Wurfel, who apologized after criticizing a researcher's reports of rising lead levels in the blood of Flint children as irresponsible, resigned in December along with agency Director Dan Wyant after a task force the governor appointed criticized the department's role in the crisis.
Michael Pattwell, a Lansing lawyer representing Wurfel, said his client won’t comment on the email in light of ongoing civil litigation related to the Flint drinking-water crisis.
But Pattwell said GM has chloride standards for water in its manufacturing operations that are more stringent than what the U.S. EPA allows in drinking water.
“It was because of that internal and more restrictive standard that (GM) switched its water source,” Pattwell said. “The decision had nothing to do with health concerns or lead.”
In the email, Wurfel alludes to the fact that aesthetic issues, such as chloride levels well below EPA limits, “are by law squarely within the province of the operator of the public water system, not the state regulatory agency having only those powers expressly granted it by the Legislature,” Pattwell said.
Seeking a solution
Also in October 2014, the issue of GM's switch raised concerns with one of Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder's top legal aides, according to email released Thursday.
Valerie Brader, deputy legal counsel and senior policy adviser to Snyder at the time, received an email from the office of now state Senate Minority Leader Sen. Jim Ananich, a Democrat from Flint, about GM's decision. In turn, Brader forwarded the email to several top Michigan Department of Environmental Quality officials, including former department head Wyant.
"This underscores the need for folks from DEQ to talk to the EM (emergency manager) in Flint, and to make sure a blended water solution is being explored," she wrote.
The Brader email doesn't appear to reveal anything new, a spokesman for the governor said.
Spokesman Ari Adler called the newly disclosed email "a reaffirmation from Val that the DEQ and the emergency manager should be considering all options related to the water in Flint for a variety of concerns."
The disclosure of new emails comes one day after a task force appointed by Snyder issued a damning report on the Flint drinking water public health crisis, slamming the catastrophe as a story of "government failure, intransigence, unpreparedness, delay, inaction and environmental injustice" and largely blaming the state's environmental protection department.
"As we have said all along, emails are continuously being searched, processed & posted as they are available," Adler said. "This will continue for some time yet as we complete our search and provide everything online in an effort to be transparent."
A briefing paper on Flint water sent Feb. 1 to Snyder referenced that Flint River water was "harder" than the Lake Huron water that Flint had received from the Detroit water system.
"It's why General Motors suspended use of Flint water," the briefing paper from environmental officials said. "It was rusting their parts."
In January, Dennis Muchmore, Snyder's former chief of staff, said on the public affairs program Off the Record on WKAR-TV, East Lansing, Mich., that he and Snyder were aware of the GM move away from Flint water when it happened.
"So that was not a red flag?" Tim Skubick, the host of the program, asked Muchmore.
"Well, it was a flag," Muchmore replied. However, it appeared "the kind of water that they need has such a small tolerance that you can never guarantee that for every day public water."
'Cover and support'
The latest email release sheds a little more light on the events surrounding state approval of Flint leaving the Detroit water system for the Karegnondi Water Authority, the new pipeline under construction from Lake Huron to Genesee County.
Wyant, then director of the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, said in an April 13, 2013, email that Andy Dillon, then state treasurer, was looking to him for “a little cover and support” when Dillon asked Wyant to help him review the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department’s “last best offer” to Flint, aimed at keeping the city from joining the the new water authority.
Wyant sent the email to environmental official Madhu Anderson.
The exchange started when Dillon emailed Wyant and Muchmore, referencing an article that appeared in the Detroit News that day saying Detroit water department officials were hoping for “an 11th-hour agreement” to keep Flint, a major Detroit customer, from joining the Karegnondi Water Authority.
The article said the state had approved Flint’s switch April 12, but that decision was subject to the state’s review of a final pricing offer from Detroit.
Dillon, a former Democratic House speaker, wrote that the article “suggests we may have a lot on our plate on this issue.”
Wyant followed up with email that he sent to Anderson but not to Dillon.
“This decision is on Andy Dillon’s desk to recommend to the governor. I think he is looking (to) me for a little cover and support,” it read.
Dillon initially opposed Flint joining the new water authority, and an engineering study he ordered said it would be more costly for Flint to join than stay with Detroit. But Dillon has said he changed his mind after other consultants poked holes in the study and because Flint and state environmental officials supported the switch.
"Without question, I was looking for support from DEQ to help Treasury evaluate whether joining KWA was in the best interests of Flint," Dillon said in email Thursday to the Free Press.
However, Dillon added, " 'Cover' doesn't resonate with me because during this period my concern was rejecting KWA, which would upset the locals and potentially cause the governor a political headache. I think by the time this exchange occurred, we got comfortable with KWA, so we weren't looking for 'cover.' We were just trying to make sure our decision was based on good information."
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