Matthew Dolan, Paul Egan, and Todd Spangler

Detroit Free Press

Newly released government e-mails Thursday show federal environmental and health officials knew about complaints of rashes cropping up in Flint as far back as May 2014, one month after the city left the Detroit water system and began using Flint River water as its drinking source.

The state's health department assisted by federal agencies did not start a formal investigation into residents' rashes until February of this year.

This latest crop of released e-mails related to the water crisis adds to the mountain of paper and correspondence showing government officials often preoccupied with image and procedure while Flint residents complained of rashes and water that smelled foul, looked discolored and was later determined to contain poisonous levels of lead.

The batch of e-mails released Thursday as well as those released in the last several weeks provide a new road map about how federal officials responded to problems with Flint's water reported directly to them in May 2014, one month after the city switched to the Flint River water source.

A Flint resident spoke with Jennifer Crooks, the Michigan program manager for drinking water at the federal Environmental Protection Agency's regional office in Chicago, according to an e-mail.

The resident "said he and many people have rashes from the new water. He said his doctor says the rash is from the new drinking water," Crooks wrote in an e-mail to Mindy Eisenberg. According to online EPA documents, Eisenberg was the chief of the protection branch in EPA’s Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water in 2014. Later in the e-mail, Crooks said she told the resident to bring his concerns to state DEQ officials, but the man said he didn't trust the state.

Later that month, another EPA officials spoke to the same resident. "Rashes can be caused by other changes in water chemistry due to the change in source waters but the first step would be to rule out regulated contaminants," wrote Thomas Poy, also an official with the EPA.

Crooks in June 2014 revisited the issue, sending out a briefing on the issue to state and federal authorities.

"There have been numerous complaints to the Region 5 Ground Water and Drinking Water Branch regarding the drinking water, including rotten egg smell, swamp water smell, people developing rashes," Crooks wrote on June 20 to EPA and DEQ officials.

Her findings included a determination that the Flint River's "raw water is a different quality and more variable than Lake Huron raw water that Detroit is using." But her conclusion based on test results from the DEQ found that there were some "detects of regulated contaminants" including trihalomethanes — a by-product of the chlorine disinfectants added to the water to kill the bacteria — but the levels found were not apparently considered above acceptable levels, or "exceedances." She asked whether the federal Centers for Disease Control might be able to assist.

On June 20, Mark Johnson, a regional director for the CDC's agency for toxic substances and disease registry, wrote to other federal officials that "although the analytical testing does not indicate the presence of chemicals that appear to be a health concern, the fact that their raw water is coming from a new source raises questions about the other constituents that have not been evaluated." In a subsequent e-mail, Johnson passes along a response from a CDC official who suspects the rashes could be a result of the pH level in the water.

It is unclear from the e-mails what steps state and federal officials took after those discussions. In February of this year, Michigan Department of Health and Human Services announced it would investigate the rashes in an effort aided by federal officials.

CDC was not able to provide a response by the Free Press' print deadline but said it would respond as soon as it could.

The EPA did not respond to a specific request for comment about the e-mails, but issued a news release about the agency's ongoing work in Flint.

"The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) and CDC public health specialists have been contacting residents to learn more about their skin rash conditions and evaluate medical information," the EPA wrote in a Thursday release, adding that the agency planned to increase its water testing starting next week. "The goal of this skin rash investigation, which is led by MDHHS and supported by CDC and EPA, is to identify specific public health interventions to mitigate rash illness. The investigation is expected to be completed in late April or early May."

GM's rejection

Other e-mails focused on the impact of one of Flint's largest employers leaving the city water system in 2014.

The government e-mails reveal that a top Michigan Department of Environmental Quality official had concerns that General Motors' rejection of Flint water for use in its auto plant could put the department in “an awkward spot” related to its decisions on Flint drinking water.

"On review, let's be really careful on this," former DEQ spokesman Brad Wurfel wrote to department officials who were poised to answer questions by reporters about the quality of Flint River water, which was also being used as a drinking water source.

GM's decision in October 2014 to switch off of City of Flint water in favor of Flint Township water, which came from Detroit, is now seen a major red flag that was missed to investigate what was wrong with Flint's water, later determined to be contaminated by high amounts of lead now believed to be leaching from pipes.

At the time, the automaker said it was concerned high chloride levels in the treated water would cause corrosion.

On Oct. 15, 2014, top Michigan DEQ officials discussed Flint water in a string of e-mails. In one of those e-mails, Wurfel wrote to other DEQ officials that “GM's announcement has potential to put us in an awkward spot with respect to decisions Flint needs to make on its own."

Wurfel — who apologized after criticizing a researcher's reports of rising lead levels in the blood of Flint children as irresponsible — resigned in December along with DEQ Director Dan Wyant after a task force appointed by the governor criticized the department's role in the crisis.

Michael Pattwell, a Lansing attorney representing Wurfel, said his client won’t comment on the e-mail in light of ongoing civil litigation related to the Flint drinking water crisis.

But Pattwell said GM has chloride standards for water used in its manufacturing operations that are more stringent than what the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency allows in drinking water.

“It was because of that internal and more restrictive standard that (GM) switched its water source,” Pattwell said. “The decision had nothing to do with health concerns or lead.”

Pattwell said that Wurfel in the e-mail alludes to the fact that aesthetic issues, such as chloride levels well below EPA limits, “are by law squarely within the province of the operator of the public water system, not the state regulatory agency having only those powers expressly granted it by the Legislature.”

He said Wurfel was “correct in suggesting that MDEQ not take an over-prescriptive approach with respect to matters within the jurisdiction of the trained and certified professionals employed by the City of Flint to manage its water system.”

Seeking a solution

Also in October 2014, the issue of GM's switch raised concerns with one of Gov. Rick Snyder's top legal aides, according to an e-mail released Thursday.

Valerie Brader, deputy legal counsel and senior policy adviser to Snyder at the time, received an e-mail from the office of now state Senate Minority Leader Sen. Jim Ananich, D.-Flint, about GM's decision. In turn, Brader forwarded the e-mail to several top DEQ officials, including former department head Wyant.

"This underscores the need for folks from DEQ to talk to the EM (emergency manager) in Flint, and to make sure a blended water solution is being explored," she wrote.

A spokesman for the governor said Thursday that the Brader e-mail doesn't appear to reveal anything new.

Spokesman Ari Adler called the newly disclosed e-mail "a reaffirmation from Val that the DEQ and the emergency manager should be considering all options related to the water in Flint for a variety of concerns. But as we all know now, those concerns were not about lead in the water at the state level because the DEQ was incorrectly reporting that the water was not contaminated with lead."

The disclosure of new e-mails comes one day after a task force appointed by Snyder issued a damning 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" and largely blaming the state's environmental protection department, known as the DEQ.

"As we have said all along, e-mails are continuously being searched, processed & posted as they are available," Adler said. "This will continue for some time yet as we complete our search and provide everything online in an effort to be transparent."

A briefing paper on Flint water sent to Snyder on Feb. 1 referenced the fact the Flint River water was "harder" than the Lake Huron water that Flint formerly received from the Detroit water system. "It's why General Motors suspended use of Flint water," the briefing paper from the DEQ said. "It was rusting their parts."

Dennis Muchmore, Snyder's former chief of staff, said on the public affairs program "Off the Record" on WKAR-TV in January of this year that he and Snyder were aware of the GM move away from Flint water when it happened.

"So that was not a red flag?" Tim Skubick, the host of the program, asked Muchmore.

"Well, it was a flag," Muchmore replied. However, it appeared "the kind of water that they need has such a small tolerance that you can never guarantee that for every day public water."

'Cover and support'

The latest e-mail release also sheds a little more light on the events surrounding the state’s approval of Flint leaving the Detroit water system for the Karegnondi Water Authority, the new pipeline under construction from Lake Huron to Genesee County.

Wyant, who then was the director of the MDEQ, said in an April 13, 2013 e-mail that Andy Dillon, who was then the state treasurer, was looking to him for “a little cover and support” when Dillon asked Wyant to help him review the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department’s “last best offer” to Flint, aimed at keeping the city from joining the KWA.

Wyant sent the e-mail to DEQ official Madhu Anderson.

The exchange started when Dillon e-mailed Wyant and Muchmore, referencing an article that appeared in the Detroit News that day saying Detroit water department officials were hoping for “an 11th-hour agreement” to keep Flint, a major Detroit customer, from joining the KWA.

The article said the state had approved Flint’s switch to the KWA on April 12, but that decision was subject to the state’s review of a final pricing offer from Detroit.

Dillon, a former Democratic House speaker, wrote that the article “suggests we may have a lot on our plate on this issue,” and “Dan, I suspect we may need your help to review and evaluate the ‘last best offer.’ ”

Wyant followed up with an e-mail he sent to Anderson, but not to Dillon. It read: “This decision is on Andy Dillon’s desk to recommend to the governor. I think he is looking (to) me for a little cover and support.”

Dillon initially opposed Flint joining the KWA, and an engineering study he ordered said it would be more costly for Flint to join the KWA than to stay with Detroit. But Dillon has said he changed his mind after other consultants poked holes in the study and because local officials in Flint and the DEQ supported the switch.

On Thursday, Dillon said in an e-mail to the Free Press that "without question, I was looking for support from DEQ to help Treasury evaluate whether joining KWA was in the best interests of Flint."

However, Dillon added, "'Cover' doesn't resonate with me because during this period my concern was rejecting KWA which would upset the locals and potentially cause the Governor a political headache. I think by the time this exchange occurred, we got comfortable with KWA so we weren't looking for 'cover', we were just trying to make sure our decision was based on good information."

Contact Matthew Dolan: 313-223-4743 or msdolan@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @matthewsdolan.