Internal emails reported on Tuesday by The Guardian and MLive reveal that executives at a water company contracted to assess the water system in Flint, Michigan privately expressed concerns that residents “might be at risk of being poisoned by lead in their tap water months before the city publicly admitted the problem in 2015.”

“The documents show a Veolia executive, a month before the corporation told the city its water was safe, saying that ‘lead seems to be a problem.'”
—Alissa Weinman, Corporate Accountability

The emails, obtained by the watchdog group Corporate Accountability, came to light through a lawsuit filed in the Genesee County Circuit Court by the Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat who took office in January. The state’s suit accused the company, Veolia, of “professional negligence, negligence, public nuisance, unjust enrichment, and fraud.” Last month a state judge threw out all but the unjust enrichment claim.

Corporate Accountability spokesperson Alissa Weinman told the newspapers that Veolia’s actions related to Flint were “despicable.”

“The documents show a Veolia executive, a month before the corporation told the city its water was safe, saying that ‘lead seems to be a problem,'” Weinman said. “I think anyone has to ask themselves how the story in Flint would be different five years later now if Veolia had made those private concerns public.”

In April 2014, an emergency manager appointed by Michigan’s then-governor, Republican Rick Snyder, switched Flint’s water supply from Detroit’s system to the Flint River in a bid to save money. By August, city officials had issued boil-water alerts because of coliform bacteria. In February 2015, high levels of lead were found in the drinking water at the home of Lee Anne Walters, who notified the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.