LANSING, Mich. (AP) – Two lawyers in Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder’s office urged his top aides to switch Flint back to Detroit’s water system only months after the city began using the Flint River, with one calling the use of the river “downright scary” even before lead contamination concerns came to light, according to emails.
The Detroit Free Press and The Detroit News reported Friday that Valerie Brader, Snyder’s senior policy adviser and deputy legal counsel, and chief legal counsel Mike Gadola expressed concerns about Flint’s water in October 2014, nearly six months after Flint had begun using the river water to save money.
In an email to then-chief of staff Dennis Muchmore and others, Brader requested that the governor’s office ask Flint’s emergency manager to return to Detroit’s system on Oct. 14. She said it was an “urgent matter to fix,” citing E. coli problems and a General Motors plant’s switch to different water because Flint’s water was rusting engine parts.
Gadola quickly wrote that the idea of using the Flint River as a drinking water source was “downright scary.”
Flint “should try to get back on the Detroit system as a stopgap ASAP before this thing gets too far out of control,” he said.