Paul Egan and Matthew Dolan

Detroit Free Press

FLINT — A task force appointed by Gov. Rick Snyder issued a hard-hitting 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."

The 116-page report said the state's controversial emergency manager law contributed to the lead contamination crisis by removing governmental checks and balances. It called for a review of the law and said Snyder should look for alternatives to the current approach so that locally elected officials can be kept more engaged.

The report also calls for creation of a Flint Toxic Exposure Registry "to include all the children and adults residing in Flint from April 2014 to present."

Time to govern, move forward to fix Flint

Though it puts most of the blame on the state Department of Environmental Quality, the report also singles out for blame the governor's office, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, Flint emergency managers who Snyder appointed, the City of Flint, the Genesee County Health Department, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The DEQ "caused this crisis to happen," the report said. "Moreover, when confronted with evidence of its failures, (it) responded publicly through formal communications with a degree of intransigence and belligerence that has no place in government."

Two DEQ ranking officials have already resigned and one DEQ employee was fired earlier in the fallout from the crisis. The task force on Wednesday did not call for additional officials to resign or be fireD over the crisis, saying those decisions should be left up to government leaders.

Snyder, who appointed the task force in October, joined task force members at Mott Community College in Flint Wednesday morning for the report's release. He said he appreciated the work of the task force and would work on implementing its recommendations, though he did not appear to fully embrace all of them.

"They have 44 recommendations in the report … I can tell you of the recommendations, there are 25 that we're already working on, there are nine we're still checking on and there are 10 that are being referred to other organizations " Snyder said at a news conference in Flint after the report's release. Work triggered by those recommendations, he said, will go on for an "extended period of time and for many years. ... This is a problem I made a commitment to fix."

The report said the Flint water crisis "occurred when state-appointed emergency managers replaced local representative decision-making in Flint, removing the checks and balances and public accountability that come with public decision-making."

The report said the EM law "can be improved to better ensure that protection of public health and safety is not compromised in the name of financial urgency."

"Emergency managers made key decisions that contributed to the crisis, from the use of the Flint River to delays in reconnecting to DWSD (the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department) once water quality problems were encountered," it said.

"Given the demographics of Flint, the implications for environmental injustice cannot be ignored or dismissed."

But the report also said there were valuable aspects to the crisis, including "the critical role played by engaged Flint citizens, by individuals both inside and outside of government who had the expertise and willingness to question and challenge government leadership, and by members of a free press who used the tools that enable investigative journalism.

"Without their courage and persistence, this crisis likely never would have been brought to light and mitigation efforts never begun," the report said.

Snyder appointed the task force in October, three weeks after he and his administration acknowledged a problem with unsafe levels of lead in Flint drinking water, following months of denials from DEQ officials. Snyder called for an independent review of what led to the lead poisoning of Flint's drinking water and "offer recommendations for future guidelines to protect the health and safety of all state residents."

The report cited "intransigent disregard of compelling evidence of water quality problems and associated health effects," and "callous and dismissive responses to citizens' expressed concerns."

It said Snyder and his office continued to rely on inaccurate information provided by DEQ and DHHS "despite mounting evidence from outside experts and months of citizens' complaints."

The governor earlier acknowledged in a published interview this year he was aware in the summer of 2015 about concerns related to lead in the drinking water but said tests showed they weren't at dangerous levels. He said he and other state officials should have been more proactive about getting better information.

The report released Wednesday appeared to confirm that account in general terms.

“In mid-summer 2015, the governor and senior staff discussed Flint water issues; lead was apparently part of those discussions,” the report said.

However early conversations among the governor's top staff members in 2014 about problems with Flint water should have caught Snyder's attention, the report concluded.

When Snyder's top legal advisers told other Snyder officials in October 2014 that Flint should be switched back to the Detroit water system, that should have prompted, "at a minimum, a full and comprehensive review of the water situation in Flint," the report said.

Chris Kolb, a task force member and president of the Michigan Environmental Council, said the governor's office was playing “Whack-a-Mole" in trying to run down concerns about Flint's water quality.

“Every time an issue came up, they asked about it, they were told it’s being taken care of, it’s solved, and then another issue would come up. At some point, though, you have to say: ‘Wait a second. My gut’s telling me something’s wrong.’ ” Kolb said.

The task force says Snyder "must assume the leadership of, and hold state departments accountable for, long-term implementation of the recommendations in this report, including but not limited to the need for cultural changes across multiple state agencies, the need for health mitigation and (lead service line) replacement in Flint, and the need for a funding strategy to address replacement of LSLs statewide."

Brandon Dillon, chairman of the Michigan Democratic Party, said the report confirmed that state Treasury officials and Flint EMs actively prevented the Flint City Council from reconnecting to Detroit water, by making that a condition of an emergency loan the state provided.

"The governor’s own hand-picked task force totally contradicts his testimony before Congress last week, placing responsibility for the Flint Water Crisis squarely with him, his emergency managers, and his administration," Dillon said in a news release.

While emergency managers have been seen as a success in places like the city of Detroit during its ride through municipal bankruptcy, others including in Flint have floundered as strict oversight without local control dragged on for years.

"In many states, the governor would not get involved in a city’s financial troubles or its operations," Stephen Fehr and Mary Murphy at the Pew Charitable Trusts, a Washington-based public policy research center, wrote in a new analysis published Wednesday. "But Michigan and some other states have traditions of aiding troubled local governments."

How race, class set the stage for Flint water crisis

Other models that have shown some success in other states include appointing an independent control board or a coordinated group of financial consultants to aid a city's own financial recovery, Fehr and Murphy wrote. Snyder said on Wednesday he would be open to a task force recommendation to assign subject matter experts to a city or school district under the state's emergency control.

On Wednesday, Flint's mayor praised the report's findings, but insisted the task force's impact could be limited without financial support to engineer the city's revival.

“While this report is welcomed, without funding from the Michigan Legislature and Congress, these are only recommendations and promises that do absolutely nothing to get Flint on the road to recovery," Flint Mayor Karen Weaver said in a news release. "Our residents were poisoned by drinking lead-laced water for 18 months and still cannot use the water coming out of their taps for drinking, cooking or just brushing their teeth.

She added that the city's nearly 100,000 residents "are paying a high price for mistakes that were made. Yet there has been absolutely no sense of urgency by state and federal elected officials to get Flint the funding it needs.”

The mayor noted that two months have gone by since Snyder said in his State of the State address that he would do everything he could to help Flint. State lawmakers have yet to approve $127 million in supplemental spending the governor asked to aid Flint.

The report cites communications breakdowns between state and local officials and Weaver said some of those tensions continue today.

“The continued failure to communicate with the elected officials here in Flint is simply astonishing,” said Weaver, who said she was given no advance warning about the task force's findings or a timeline for its release to the public. “I have avoided placing blame for the Flint water crisis, trying to focus the community’s and my attention on moving forward. That can happen only if the state works cooperatively with local officials. But Gov. Snyder continues to ignore me, my administration, and the residents of Flint.”

Ari Adler, the governor's spokesman, said in an e-mail Wednesday that the task force was an independent body that controlled when it would release its report and to whom.

Snyder has repeatedly called the crisis a failure of state, local and federal governments. The report does not contradict that, but puts it the vast majority of the blame on the state.

Task force members, who did not have subpoena power, said they mostly got the cooperation they needed, but not in every instance. Notably, they couldn't get an interview with Lockwood, Andrews & Newman (LAN) Inc., the engineering firm hired to get the Flint Water Treatment plant ready for its expanded role and has been named as a defendant in several lawsuits. A LAN spokesman earlier told the Free Press it was the city and the DEQ, not the company, that made the crucial decision not to use corrosion-control chemicals in treating the Flint Water, which resulted in lead leaching from pipes, joints and fixtures. The task force submitted written questions to LAN, as requested, but did not receive answers, the report said.

Late Wednesday, LAN spokesman Pete Wentz e-mailed the company's responses to those questions to the Free Press, saying they were sent to the task force before the report was made public. In the documents, the company says it wasn't responsible for overall water quality, recommended a 60- to 90-day test run of the plant to test water quality, which apparently didn't happen, and questioned the decision not to use corrosion-control chemicals, but was told by city officials they intended to do no more than what the DEQ required.

Though wide-ranging, the report did not delve deeply into every area the members saw as meriting investigation. For example, it questioned state approval for the new Karegnondi Water Authority pipeline to Lake Huron to serve an economically distressed area "that had ample water supply and treatment capacity." It said the issue was outside the scope of its work but should be reviewed, possibly by the the state attorney general or U.S. Attorney's Office.

The report raises the issue of environmental racism by citing "environmental justice" and noting the demographics of Flint, a majority black city.

Snyder said environmental justice is important, but "I don't know if you can conclude it was a racial issue by any means."

But the governor's comments were quickly appended by members of his task force, who drew a brighter line connecting Flint's fortunes to its socio-economic makeup.

"Environmental injustice is not about overt acts of racism," Ken Sikkema, a member of the task force, senior policy fellow at Public Sector Consultants and former state representative and state senator, told reporters Wednesday. "It's not about motivation. It's not about deliberate attacks on a certain population group. It's not about overt violations, attacks upon civil rights."

"It's about equal treatment, in this case, equal environmental protection and public health protection regardless of race, national origin or income as one pillar of it. And the second pillar is meaningful participation in government decision making," Sikkema said. "In both cases, clearly what happened here is a case of environmental injustice."

Task force member Dr. Lawrence Reynolds, who is black, added that "the components of environmental justice require that people who are different are listened to fairly," and "this is our challenge to meet that standard."

Emerging issues

Initially expected to report in February, the task force's work was extended by emerging issues, particularly the possible connection between Flint River water and outbreaks of Legionnaires' disease in the Flint area that is believed to have contributed to 10 deaths.

In late December, the task force issue an interim report that placed most of the blame for the catastrophe on the DEQ and prompted the immediate resignation of Dan Wyant, who was then the department director, and Brad Wurfel, who was the department's communications director. Liane Shekter-Smith, who headed the DEQ's drinking water section, was later fired. Another DEQ official, Stephen Busch, is suspended pending completion of investigations and disciplinary proceedings.

Recommendations include:

A culture change for the DEQ, especially the Office of Drinking Water and Municipal Assistance, to "refocus the department on its primary mission to protect human health and the environment."

Ensure adequate funding for the drinking water office. The report said preliminary figures suggest Michigan's office has one of the lowest budgets in the region, "while having one of the largest, if not the largest, number of community water systems to regulate."

Changes at the DHHS that would "ensure input by health experts and scientists when permit decisions may have a direct impact on human health."

Ensure DHHS is transparent and timely in reporting and analysis of aggregate data regarding children’s blood lead levels.

The health department, in cases of future switches of water supplies, should assume that outbreaks of (Legionnaires' disease) cases may be related to changes in water source and communicate the potential risk to the public, rather than assuming and communicating the opposite."

Expand information flow to the governor so information important to key decisions comes from more than one trusted source, and is verified.

Create a culture in state government that is not defensive about concerns and evidence that contradicts official positions, but rather is receptive and open-minded.

Ensure that communications from all state agencies are respectful, even in the face of criticism, and sensitive to the concerns of diverse populations.

The federal EPA should "exercise more vigor, and act more promptly, in addressing compliance violations that endanger public health," the report said.

The task force members are: Ken Sikkema, a senior policy fellow at Public Sector Consultants and a former GOP Senate majority leader; Chris Kolb, president of the Michigan Environmental Council and a former Democratic lawmaker; Dr. Matthew Davis, a pediatrician in the U-M Health System and a professor of public policy at U-M's Gerald R. Ford School; Eric Rothstein, a national water issues consultant, and Dr. Lawrence Reynolds, a Flint pediatrician and president of the Mott Children's Health Center.

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