FLINT, MI -- Sixteen months ago, state employees were sharply focused on preparing a detailed briefing paper, marking it "high importance" for the state's top official, Gov. Rick Snyder.

The subject: Flint water and a series of boil water advisories in the city, a small issue compared to the titanic problems to come, including rising levels of lead poisoning in children and a potential link between the water and a deadly outbreak of Legionnaires' disease.

The October 2014 briefing paper, part of more than 23,000 pages of emails released by the state this month, was in striking contrast to later water crisis emails that emerged over the next year and appear to leave the state's chief executive out of the loop.

Emails released today show Snyder's top aides were worried early on about Flint's water troubles, but there's no evidence in these emails that the governor himself was briefed on lead or Legionnaires'.

Among The Flint Journal-MLive's findings, two top advisers to Snyder recommended Flint switch back to using Detroit water as early as October 2014, according to one email.

In another, the governor's chief of staff was notified of Flint lead concerns more than two months before the public was notified, and yet another shows that the city administrator hired by the city's state-appointed emergency manager tried to discourage the newly elected Flint mayor from declaring an emergency over water.

The city's water troubles have since ballooned into a massive public health crisis, and investigations at multiple levels are hunting for evidence of who knew what -- and when.

"There's no reasonable person who can believe at this point that every top adviser to Rick Snyder knew that there was an issue, but Snyder knew nothing," said Lonnie Scott, executive director of Progress Michigan.

Snyder has maintained the debate over rising lead levels in Flint didn't appear on his radar until summer 2015 and said in responses to questions from The Flint Journal-MLive that he wasn't sure he was dealing with a severe problem until the first week of October.

In news conferences this month, Snyder said he didn't know lead in water was a problem identified by the state DEQ until Oct. 1, 2015, but "in terms of saying there was testing and work being done on lead and there were third parties bringing it up, it was during the summertime.

"In terms of actually getting confirmation from our experts that there was a problem -- the DEQ was essentially I believe Oct. 1 ... and then DHHS confirmed I believe Oct. 2 there was an issue with the blood levels."

"There was a fundamental failure in terms of some career civil service people -- some career bureaucrats, people that worked in this field for years -- in terms of culturally just literally following the rules and their interpretation of the rules," Snyder said in Feb. 18 news conference.

"We worked on those issues, but there was quite a period because people didn't tell me," Snyder said, responding to the gap in written communication.

"Again this is where common sense was missing in my view, and then the check and balance system didn't work particularly well both at the city, state and federal government," Snyder added.

Following that early boil water advisory, written briefings to the governor abruptly stopped for nearly a year even as protesters marched, thousands signed petitions to change the city's water source, and the crisis gained national attention.

In February 2015, the governor received a "detailed backgrounder" about Flint water's latest problem with too much of a disinfection byproduct known as TTHM, as well as "talking points" in advance of the state announcing a $2 million grant for the city.

But while state government employees continued to correspond among themselves and with outside agencies about Flint water, records released so far by the state show Snyder's didn't receive another briefing until Sept. 28, 2015, just days before the state Department of Health and Human Services would retract its position that there was no increase in lead exposure to city residents from drinking city water.

State emails show those in important positions in state government, including department heads who reported on Flint water issues directly to the governor, issued early warnings and had information that could have allowed problems to be addressed earlier.

Among them:

--- The governor's chief legal counsel, Mike Gadola, and his environmental policy adviser, Valerie Brader, both recommended Flint return to the Detroit water system in October 2014 after General Motors stopped using city water because of corrosion concerns. This email was sent to Snyder's chief of staff a year before the lead crisis prompted an eventual switch back to the Detroit Water and Sewerage System.

"They should try to get back on the Detroit system as a stopgap ASAP before this thing gets too far out of control," Gadola wrote.

--- Former DEQ communications director Brad Wurfel didn't want his boss calling the Flint water "safe" as early as January 2015 due to a deadly outbreak of Legionnaires' Disease possibly connected to the city's water supply. Snyder claims he didn't learn of the outbreak until days before announcing it publically roughly a year later.

--- Snyder's then-chief of staff Dennis Muchmore was informed by another Snyder appointee in July 2015 that pastors in Flint were concerned about lead in the water. Muchmore then followed up with state health officials, who said their data did not show blood lead levels to be a concern.

But more than two months later - after a Flint pediatrician sounded the alarm about lead -- state officials admitted that their data did show a rise in blood lead levels if they focused on Flint zip codes and young children who are most susceptible to lead poisoning.

--- Steve Busch, a former district supervisor at the Department of Environmental Quality, was warned nearly two years ago by Flint's water plant supervisor that the city wasn't prepared to manage water treatment just eight days before it was put into full-time service for the first time in nearly 50 years.

Snyder's briefing papers released by state make no mention of the warning having been passed on by the department.

--- The DEQ was aware of the potential connection between Flint water and the Legionnaires' outbreak in early October 2014.

The governor has said neither representatives of the agency nor the Department of Health and Human Services, which was also aware of the potential tie, told him until January of this year.

Agencies involved in an investigation aimed at finding the source of the outbreak instead fought among themselves, leaving the question unanswered.

--- Harvey Hollins, Snyder's director of Urban and Metropolitian Initiatives, and former Flint emergency manager Jerry Ambrose were among those alerted to the possible city water-Legionnaires' connection 11 months ago.

Snyder has said he was never told by either Hollins or Ambrose, both of whom he appointed to key government jobs.

--- Busch received the first warning about potential lead releases in Flint water in a Feb. 26, 2015, email from Jennifer Crooks of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which speculated "the different chemistry water is leaching out contaminants from the insides of the biofilms inside the pipes" in Flint.

Although emails released by the governor to date don't contradict Snyder's statements about his late knowledge of the most serious part of the Flint water crisis, state Senate Minority Leader Jim Ananich, D-Flint, said the public hasn't been given all the information.

"We're getting documents that appear to have been picked and chosen," said Ananich, who introduced a Senate resolution that would grant subpoena power for a state committee set up to look into Flint water.

"Half-truths that have been (told) are not helping anybody," the senator said. "It's not moving us toward finding solutions ... I think we need to get all the documents."

Dave Murray, Snyder's former press secretary, said all of the governor's "email concerning Flint water during this time period were released following the State of the State address."

The emails cover the period of 2014 and 2015.

"As Gov. Snyder said, he became aware that DHHS confirmed the reports of the elevated blood lead levels on Oct. 1, (2015), and he responded immediately.

"(The) governor was aware that (former Chief of Staff) Dennis Muchmore and others had been meeting with concerned community members and was aware of the concerns raised by the outside experts - and the departments' response to them.

"I'm not aware of any documents generated that haven't been released. There were certainly meetings with the chief of staff and others where the topic might have been discussed," Murray said in an email.