Paul Egan

Detroit Free Press Lansing Bureau

LANSING — Many state departments are cooperating with Gov. Rick Snyder's task force investigating the lead contamination of Flint's drinking water, but getting needed information from certain departments is "like pulling teeth," a task force member said Friday.

Dr. Lawrence Reynolds, a Flint pediatrician who was named to Snyder's Flint Water Task Force in October, did not specify which departments are cooperating with the work of the task force and which are not.

"Some agencies have been very forthcoming; other agencies, it's like pulling teeth to get information," Reynolds said at a meeting of the Flint Water Interagency Coordinating Committee, which Reynolds also sits on. Snyder set up the interagency committee to make sure all state and local agencies, as well as local experts, are working together to address the Flint crisis.

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Rich Baird, a top aide to Snyder who sits on the interagency committee, told Reynolds he will do what he can to assure better cooperation. "I am at your disposal to help with any agency," Baird told Reynolds at the meeting in Flint, which was off-limits to the news media but streamed live over the Internet.

So far, the task force has issued two letters in advance of its final report. The first one, in December, placed most of the blame for the Flint drinking water crisis on the state Department of Environmental Quality and sparked the resignation of DEQ director Dan Wyant and his communications director, Brad Wurfel.

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Reynolds said work on the task force report, slated for completion later this month, continues. He said the task force is having particular difficulty resolving questions related to the outbreaks of Legionnaires' disease in Flint and Genesee County that could be related to Flint switching its drinking water source from to the Flint River in April 2014. The city was previously getting its water from Lake Huron, which was treated by the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department.

A failure by the state DEQ to require the addition of needed corrosion control chemicals allowed the corrosive river water to leach lead from pipes, joints and fixtures, sending the toxic metal into an unknown number of Flint households. After months of denials, state officials acknowledged lead poisoning of children in October. The concern about Legionnaires' disease, a bacterial disease, emerged later.

In exploring the Legionnaires' issue, there are "gaps in information," and "there's a recurring theme of lack of coordination and information exchange," and excessive focus on meeting technical requirements rather than focusing on vital health issues, Reynolds said.

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Reynolds also said there appeared to be "significant tension" between the Genesee County Health Department and the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.

"People seem to be refusing to help each other and people may have to be FOIA'd for information," said Reynolds, referring to the need to file an open records request under the Michigan Freedom of Information Act.

"Folks are under a lot of pressure, and folks are lawyering up," but "that needs to cease and desist," Reynolds said.

DHHS Director Nick Lyon attended the session and said a meeting was planned Friday afternoon to try to address any issues between his agency and the county health department.

Chris De Witt, a spokesman for the Flint Water Task Force, declined to elaborate on Reynolds' remarks. Reynolds could not be reached for comment after the meeting.

Snyder, who attended the meeting, highlighted the need for greater cooperation in his closing remarks and said his focus and that of the committee is fixing problems, not assessing blame or politicizing the issue as he said others are doing.

"There's got to be urgency to everything we do," Snyder said.

E-mails released Thursday by the liberal group progress Michigan show that Jim Henry,an environmental health supervisor at the Genesee County Health Department, filed FOIA requests with both the City of Flint and the DEQ to try to determine whether there was a link between the Flint River water and outbreaks of Legionnaires' disease.

According to the records, Henry told state officials in October 2014 about his suspicions that the river water was the cause of an outbreak. The records show that Harvey Hollins, a director in Snyder's office, was made aware of the concerns in March 2015. Snyder has said he didn't find out until January of this year.

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