Environment

Report: Snyder Admin. Withheld Lead Testing Results From Schools

Written by SK Ashby

According to emails obtained by various sources, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder's office intentionally withheld lead testing results on more than one occasion.

More heinously, these were testing results for elementary schools.

via ThinkProgress:

On October 2, 2015, a day after Snyder says he learned that there were elevated lead levels in the city, he initiated lead testing, including at the schools.

But the results of those tests weren’t released to the public for six days, despite the numerous health risks associated with consuming lead-contaminated water. In one of the emails, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, Jim Henry, the county’s environmental health supervisor, wrote, “MDEQ [the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality] explained that the Governor prohibited releasing all Genesee County lead results until after the press conference,” which took place on October 8.

It happened more than once.

In the last week of October, further testing was conducted at Freeman Elementary School. Henry emailed the DEQ’s Laboratory Director George Krisztian on November 3 requesting all of those results through a FOIA, but Krisztian declined, saying the samples presented an “incomplete picture of the plumbing system.” He said they wouldn’t be ready until November 4. In a November 6 email sent to someone else, Henry claims that Krisztian told him he had been ordered to withhold the information until a FOIA deadline on December 2.

The receipts are piling up but with all of this said, I'm skeptical Snyder himself will ever be held directly responsible.

If I were betting, I'd put my money on someone in mid-level management being thrown under the bus and prosecuted.