"Flint E-Mails: CDC Voiced Concerns Over Legionnaires' Actions"

"More than a year ago, e-mails among officials show deep concern behind the scenes about the quality of the city’s water."

"More than eight months before Gov. Rick Snyder disclosed a deadly Legionnaires' disease outbreak in the Flint area, federal health officials worried a lack of cooperation in Michigan could be hampering the public health response.

Thousands of pages of e-mails obtained by the Detroit Free Press through the Freedom of Information Act on Monday show increasing concern about the quality of the Flint's drinking water as tensions grew over a lack of coordination to combat the waterborne disease.

County health officials were warned for reaching out to federal experts for help while they struggled to persuade Flint city officials to provide needed information, the e-mails show. Others in e-mails wondered about ethical breaches and the possibility of a cover-up.

In sum, a review of the e-mails provided by Genesee County from several public-information requests appear to illustrate the inability, if not unwillingness, of city and state agencies to share information with the county as it investigated multiple Legionnaires' cases. The clash among bureaucrats went on privately for months despite growing fears inside Flint among residents that something was deeply wrong with the city's drinking water."

Matthew Dolan, Elisha Anderson, Paul Egan, and John Wisely report for the Detroit Free Press February 9, 2016.