Paul Egan

Detroit Free Press Lansing Bureau

LANSING -- Gov. Rick Snyder's statement Monday that he wasn't aware of a problem with lead in Flint's drinking water until about Oct. 1 has prompted questions about his office's role in quietly delivering 1,500 water filters to the city in August.

Snyder's statement also raises questions about the speed and scope of the state's response since Oct. 1 and why state officials did not immediately instruct Flint residents, on Oct. 1, not to drink the water without a filter. A 10-point plan for Flint water that Snyder released Oct. 2 said the state was making water filters and water testing available to residents, but did not include a warning not to drink the water without a filter.

Now, more than three months later, the Michigan State Police and other state officials have begun delivering bottled water and water filters door-to-door in Flint. Snyder declared a state of emergency in Flint and Genesee County over the water issue Jan. 5.

The drinking water became contaminated after Flint, while under the control of a state-appointed emergency manager, engaged in cost-cutting and switched from Lake Huron drinking water treated by the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department to Flint River water treated by a city plant. The state Department of Environmental Quality acknowledged that it failed to require Flint to add needed corrosion-control chemicals to the water, causing lead to leach into drinking water from pipes and fixtures.

Gov. Snyder's response to the disaster in Flint

The Rev. Allen Overton, chairman of the Coalition for Clean Water in Flint, is among the pastors who had pushed for state action since shortly after Flint began drawing its water from the polluted and corrosive Flint River in April 2014. He said Tuesday he "can't say (whether Snyder) was telling the truth or he was lying" about not finding out about the problem until Oct. 1.

But Overton told the Free Press that Snyder should have known much sooner because he and other pastors and citizens had been meeting with Snyder's chief of staff, his director of urban affairs and his department heads, raising concerns about the water for months prior to Oct. 1.

"This is hard for me, because the governor has a lot of culpability in this entire problem," Overton said. "At the same time, I know for sure they were getting bad information from the City of Flint and (former Flint Mayor) Dayne Walling."

At the same time, "I'm not going to give him a raincoat and say he didn't know," Overton said about Snyder. "I think he knew. I think they made a bad mistake in not responding."

During the late spring or early summer, "I asked the DEQ to come to the city of Flint to do the testing themselves, and they refused," Overton said.

Snyder was touring the North American International Auto Show on Tuesday morning. At a Monday news conference in Flint, Snyder said that after Dennis Muchmore, then his chief of staff, raised concerns in a July e-mail that Flint residents' concerns about the safety of their drinking water were being "blown off" by the administration, officials at both the DEQ and the Department of Health and Human Services maintained there was not a problem.

Asked to follow up on the Muchmore e-mail, state officials "came back and reaffirmed they didn't believe there was an issue." Unfortunately, that turned out to be incorrect, Snyder said.

Overton said it was he who arranged for the delivery of 1,500 water filters to Flint last August, working with Snyder's director of the Office of Urban Initiatives, Harvey Hollins, and an anonymous donor who paid for the filters.

The filters were not so much meant to get lead out of the water as to improve the quality of the water in general, because residents had been complaining about their water's taste, smell and appearance since the switch to the Flint River, Overton said. By facilitating the delivery of the filters, Snyder's office was not so much acknowledging a problem as trying to pacify Overton and others, who had been "raising so much hell" about the water, Overton said.

Clinton: 'There's no excuse' for Flint water crisis

Asked whether he and other pastors were asked to keep quiet about the role of the governor's office in delivering the filters, Overton said that Hollins told him: "Listen, the donor did not want to be announced." Overton said he replied: "I'm not going to tell anybody."

Snyder spokesman Dave Murray said Tuesday that state officials were urging Flint residents to get water filters and get their water tested, and that was equivalent to telling residents not to drink the water without filters.

Murray confirmed Sept. 29 that about two months earlier, Snyder and his office worked with a corporate donor who wanted to remain anonymous to provide 1,500 faucet filters to a Flint-area group of pastors, who helped distribute the filters.

"The administration has worked closely with the Concerned Pastors group on the water issue, and the members are passionate about supporting their parishioners and the Flint community as a whole," Murray said at the time. "We certainly share their concern that everyone in Flint should have safe, clean water. Flint water does meet state and federal safety standards. People have complained about the color and the odor, and faucet filters will help with those challenges, as well as improving water quality overall."

Murray said Tuesday that Hollins began meeting with the pastors in May, when the water concerns related to color and odor, not lead.

"The pastors asked the administration to help with the filters, to help alleviate concerns with the color and odor," Murray said. "We secured the filters from two corporate donors. The two corporate donors specifically asked not to be named publicly. So, we honored that request."

Should Flint residents pay for lead-poisoned water?

Also on Sept. 29, the Free Press asked Snyder whether he thought lead in the drinking water was behind an apparent spike in blood levels in Flint children, and he declined to give a direct answer.

"During the course of the week or early next week, we hopefully will be coming out with more public action steps," some of which are already under way, and others to be implemented, Snyder said.

"I take it as a serious issue; the Flint water situation," Snyder said in Lansing. "Lead is a serious issue, so again, we're spending a lot of time and effort looking at this and trying to partner with the people in Flint on that issue."

The Rev. Alfred Harris Sr., president of the group of concerned pastors who have been agitating over the Flint drinking water problem, said Tuesday that in light of the Muchmore e-mail, Snyder "had to have known" there was a problem sooner than Oct. 1. But like Overton, Harris said he thinks City of Flint officials at the time were minimizing the issue.

"The Concerned Pastors were out there 18 months ago, when people first started to complain," Harris said. "The people were not believed, and that did not ignite the magnitude of an investigation that should have taken place at that time."

While faulting Snyder for not ordering a more-thorough investigation, Harris said he thinks Snyder would have acted sooner had he received better information.

Now, Flint needs to be declared a disaster area, not just in a state of emergency, in order to secure the billions of dollars in infrastructure and health funding that will be needed to address the problem through federal aid, Harris said.

Contact Paul Egan: 517-372-8660, pegan@freepress.com or on Twitter @paulegan4