Flint Manslaughter Trial: Staff Says Snyder Knew About Legionaire's Outbreak

Flint — Lawyers for Health and Human Services Director Nick Lyon focused his involuntary manslaughter preliminary exam toward what some of Gov. Rick Snyder’s staff knew about the Flint area Legionnaires’ disease outbreak and away from what their client knew.

The subject came up during the fifth day of testimony in the Lyon case in which Harvey Hollins, the governor’s urban affairs czar, was on the stand.

Hollins was caught off guard when Lyon’s attorney Larry Willey presented him with emails from Brad Wurfel, a Michigan Department of Environmental Quality spokesman, discussing Legionella in spring 2015. In response to a Willey question, Hollins said Lyon had nothing to do with the city of Flint’s switch to the corrosive Flint River that some experts link to the outbreak of Legionnaires’.

In the March 13, 2015, email, Brad Wurfel asked DEQ water quality director Liane Shekter-Smith and Drinking Water supervisor Stephen Busch to “try to keep formal written powder dry” until they could meet with Department of Community Health officials on a Legionella information request from the Genesee County Health Department. Shekter-Smith and Busch have been charged with crimes related to the Flint water crisis.

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http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/michigan/flint-water-crisis/2017/11/01/hearing-health-director-legionnaires-restarts/107224198/