Paul Egan, Kathleen Gray, and Todd Spangler

Detroit Free Press

LANSING — The drinking water catastrophe in Flint is the result of a failed model of trying to run state government like a business, says a former adviser to Gov. Rick Snyder, who also predicted the governor won’t survive a recall vote if the question makes the ballot.

Dennis Schornack, who retired after serving more than three years as a senior adviser on transportation issues to Snyder during his first term, is the first current or former Snyder official to directly criticize the governor and his management style for contributing to the public health crisis.

Schornack said he still believes Snyder is an intelligent leader and "basically a good guy." But, he said, decisions about Flint’s drinking water should have been dictated by science instead of finances and the bottom line.

Snyder plans to release e-mails on Flint back to 2011

"It's sort of a single dimension for decision making; thinking that if it can't be solved on a spreadsheet, it can't be solved," Schornack said in a telephone interview from Florida. He earlier served 12 years as a senior policy adviser to Republican Gov. John Engler and in between served six years on the International Joint Commission.

“Government is not a business ... and it cannot be run like one,” Schornack said. “The people of Flint got stuck on the losing end of decisions driven by spreadsheets instead of water quality and public health. Having been a Snyder staffer, luckily in a spreadsheet-rich area like transportation, I lived the culture amidst its faults.”

Schornack said, "The issue has totally spun out of the governor's control," and if a recall question makes it onto the ballot, "he's dead."

Michigan's Board of State Canvassers approved a Snyder recall petition over the Flint water crisis on Monday. But any attempt to recall Snyder will be a tall order: State law requires the collection of about 790,000 valid signatures in a 60-day period.

Snyder, asked about Schornack's remarks during a Monday interview with the Free Press Editorial Board, said Schornack has it wrong, at least in the context of the lead contamination of Flint's drinking water.

"It's not a business model" that led to the Flint water crisis, but a small group of career civil servants who lacked common sense, Snyder said.

"This shows a culture of, 'Here's a regulation; let's just apply the regulation,' instead of 'Let's worry about someone's health.'"

Flint's drinking water became contaminated with lead while the city was under the control of a state-appointed emergency manager and temporarily switched its drinking water source, as a cost-cutting move, while it waited for a new Karegnondi Water Authority pipeline to Lake Huron to be completed.

Snyder again expressed anger and amazement about decisions made in the state's Department of Environmental Quality when Flint switched its drinking water source from Lake Huron water, which had already been treated with corrosion-control chemicals, to more corrosive Flint River water, which had not been treated with those chemicals. While common sense would dictate that the Flint River water would need at least as much corrosion-control chemicals as the Lake Huron water had been receiving, "they defined optimized corrosion control as doing two six-month studies, and that's what they (told Flint) you have to do."

But Snyder also blamed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for a lack of oversight and said the federal Lead and Copper Rule, which DEQ officials wrongly interpreted, is dangerous because it is "geared to allow utilities to comply," and "not really focused on citizen safety."

Snyder recall petition over Flint water is approved by panel

Schornack said another example of a Snyder failure related to running government like a business was his administration's handling of gay marriage, which it opposed until it was legalized by the U.S. Supreme Court.

"Gay marriage must be decided in the heart; safe drinking water in the laboratory," Schornack said.

But the Snyder administration used spreadsheets to address both issues, deciding gay marriage on the basis of how much it would cost the state to provide benefits to same-sex couples among state employees, he said.

"You can't just answer everything with numbers," Schornack said.

Also related to the Flint crisis, the top-ranking Democrat on a congressional committee investigating what happened complained Monday that Snyder has failed to produce documents requested relating to the crisis and should be compelled by the committee to do so.

U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, who is the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, wrote in a letter to Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, that Snyder has "completely ignored" Cummings' and U.S. Rep. Brenda Lawrence's request for documents related to Flint sent Jan. 29.

"As I have stated many times, I believe the committee must obtain information from all levels of government — local, state and federal — in order to conduct a responsible and complete investigation," wrote Cummings, who was part of a delegation of congressional Democrats visiting Flint on Monday with U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee, D-Flint Township.

Cummings and Lawrence, D-Southfield, made the request after it became clear Snyder would not be invited for the committee's first hearing on Flint, asking for documents related to Flint's switch to using the Flint River as a water source in April 2014.

Snyder has since asked to testify at a second hearing, which is not yet scheduled, but is expected to take place in March. Snyder's administration also has made tens of thousands of pages of documents available in relation to Flint, including those released generally and those released through Freedom of Information Act requests.

David Murray, a spokesman for Snyder, on Monday noted the release of all of the Flint-related e-mails by the governor's office from 2014-15 and the release of more than 24,000 pages of e-mails from state agencies related to Flint that were posted online for anyone to read. Snyder's office also said Monday it plans to release additional details dating back to 2011.

The disclosure of e-mails related to the Flint crisis, congressional scrutiny and criticism are indicative of the pressure being placed on the officials some are blaming for the public health emergency.

Monday's approval of a recall petition against Snyder related to the Flint water issue is a part of that.

Pastor David Bullock, a Detroit activist who has been prominent in the RainbowPUSH Coalition and NAACP, and who ran unsuccessfully for the Detroit City Council, submitted the recall petition that was approved by the Board of State Canvassers. The board rejected six other petitions — five against Snyder and one against Lt. Gov. Brian Calley — citing either a lack of clarity, or technical or factual problems.

After having seen previous recall petitions rejected in recent weeks for such things as the wording being seen as opinion, Bullock limited his recall petition to a simple statement of fact.

The petition states that Snyder should be recalled because he "declared a state of emergency in the County of Genesee and the City of Flint pursuant to the Constitution of the state of Michigan ..."

If Snyder was successfully recalled, Calley would become governor.

Told about the approval of the recall petition during a Monday visit to the state Emergency Operations Center in Dimondale, near Lansing, Snyder said: "That's part of the democratic process."

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