A top House Democrat says he wants to see more of Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder’s emails about the lead water crisis in Flint, Mich., after a partial email dump Friday.
Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., called the October 2014 emails between two top lawyers in Snyder’s administration calling for Flint to stop using the corrosive river water that eventually caused lead to enter drinking water “disturbing.” Cummings is the top Democrat on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and Snyder will testify in front of that committee next month.
“These emails reveal that Governor Snyder’s top aides warned about water quality problems just months after his emergency manager switched the city’s drinking water to the Flint River,” Cummings said in a statement.
“But large redactions cover up the deliberations of the governor and his staff, so we still cannot see why it took his administration more than a year to reverse this tragic decision. It is difficult to imagine how many more children may have been poisoned as a result of this astonishing lack of action,” he said.
Emails between Valerie Brader and Michael Gadola, two top lawyers in Snyder’s administration, showed both thought the city needed to switch from the Flint River to the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department in October 2014. Just six months earlier, the city had switched from Detroit’s water to the river.
The emails were sent in the wake of General Motors’ decision to leave the Flint water system and use a private system. At that time, chlorine added to the water to kill bacteria, which had caused multiple boil water advisories for the city, was damaging GM’s metal auto parts.
Gadola, a Flint native, called the idea of drinking Flint River water “downright scary.”
Snyder’s top aide, Chief of Staff Dennis Muchmore, was copied on the emails and told local media that he brought the concerns to Snyder.
A year after the emails were sent, the state ordered Flint to switch back to Detroit’s system and told Flint residents to stop drinking the water. They are still unable to drink the city’s water now, more than four months later.
