Just when it seemed like the depths of bad governance in Michigan couldn’t get any worse in the Flint lead crisis, Progress Michigan has uncovered emails that indicate that state officials downplayed fears about a link between the switch to the Flint River and a deadly outbreak of Legionnaire’s Disease. The New York Times reports:
“Essentially,” the county health officials are “putting up the flare” and asserting that the “uptick in cases is directly attributable to the river as a drinking water source,” said an official at the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality in an email to his state colleagues March 13.
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In the emails from early 2015, leaders from the Genesee County Health Department were seeking information — through a formal public records request — from Flint officials about their water given the rise in Legionnaires’ cases. “The increase of the illnesses closely corresponds with the time frame of the switch to Flint River water,” Jim Henry, an environmental health supervisor for the Genesee County Health Department, wrote on March 10, calling it a “significant and urgent public health issue.”
Sending that exchange along to other, high-level state officials, Brad Wurfel, who was then the communications director for the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, suggested that Mr. Henry was making a “leap” in his assertion, and described that as “beyond irresponsible.” He also appeared critical of the county health officials for failing to conduct required work to properly trace a disease to its source. Mr. Wurfel has since resigned.
The 87-case Legionnaire’s Disease outbreak in Flint has resulted in nine deaths so far, both extraordinarily high marks for the rare disease. However, investigators have not found conclusive evidence of the link between the outbreak and the Flint River aside from timing and severity.
However, the emails show a broad indifference to environmental health concerns by the agency tasked with responding to environmental health concerns, the MDEQ. That same level of negligence and willful ignorance in responding to any water concerns, as well as a more nefarious campaign of altering water sampling outcomes, led to the lead crisis as well. What were the MDEQ and state government in general so invested in throwing Flint’s citizens under the bus?