According to another set of emails examined by The Detroit News, the Rick Snyder administration didn't merely keep the existent of a Legionnaires' disease outbreak under wraps; they declared it was over before it was actually over.
The Snyder administration privately told the CDC the outbreak was over in May of last year, two months after they were notified by the EPA.
No pronouncements about the outbreak were made then. Two months later, a Michigan health official’s email to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declared “the outbreak is over.” The disease would kill four more people in the summer and fall and would not be brought to the public’s attention until the next year.
When the public was informed, the words came from Gov. Rick Snyder during a Jan. 13 press conference. Snyder maintained he had heard about the Legionnaires’ outbreak two days earlier.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been thrown under the boss and had numerous fingers pointed at them by Republican lawmakers, but there is a clear pattern here.
From the EPA to the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) in Michigan, there is a pattern of agency officials passing crucial information to the Snyder administration which promptly tucked it into a desk drawer and did nothing about it.
It may or may not be true that agency officials should have taken it upon themselves to do more, but that in no way absolves the Snyder administration.