Legislative Panel Holds 5th Hearing On Flint Water Crisis

LANSING (WWJ/AP) - A legislative committee created to review Flint's water crisis hearing from top-ranking leaders in Gov. Rick Snyder's administration.

Department of Environmental Quality interim Director Keith Creagh and Department of Health and Human Services Director Nick Lyon are among those scheduled to testify Monday in Lansing.

Lyon was asked about the departments' handling of a Legionnaires outbreak that killed 12 people, mainly in Genessee County:

"The communication issue around Legionella is very difficult - in what we've seen with Legionnaire outbreaks across the country is finding a specific environmental source can be very difficult to do, so the general practice, as I understand it, is you need to collect clinical specimens and then link them back to an environmental source," testified Lyon.

"What we were looking - what really presented as a health care acquired outbreak and they had taken steps to mitigate the risk in the future."

A task force appointed by Snyder has concluded the state of Michigan is "fundamentally accountable" for Flint's lead-contaminated water emergency because of decisions made by environmental regulators and state-appointed emergency managers who controlled the city.

The state and county health departments have come under scrutiny for not notifying the public of a deadly Legionnaires' disease outbreak that outside experts suspect was linked to the Flint River.

 
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