Up-to-date information on our collaborative research and citizen science work with the residents of Flint, MI in light of reported water quality issues
Please note: The uncorrected proof of our new journal article has been published online. The final corrected version will be released soon. The existing document has several typographical errors arising from file conversion. A corrected final version of the document is forthcoming. The scientific substance of the uncorrected proof is accurate.
Dr. Sid Roy ([email protected]; 540.521.6193; unavailable May 29-June
1 2019)
The lack of valid drinking water lead measurements during the Flint Water Crisis has spurred controversy, speculation and angst about harmful human health exposures. A new research study published in the peer-reviewed journal Water Research, took advantage of routine lead measurements of Flint’s sewage sludge, to gain unprecedented insight to Flint’s drinking water lead levels from 2011-2017. Lead in drinking water is eventually trapped in sewage sludge, that must be analyzed monthly for metals before incineration or disposal, allowing calculation of the total monthly lead mass that is removed during sewage treatment..
“There was an anomalous spike in sewage sludge lead, and by extension the drinking water lead, during three summer months immediately after the 2014 switch to Flint River water—this is the first direct proof that the elevated water lead levels could have caused the increased blood lead of Flint children” first author Dr. Sid Roy stated. The research confirms prior hypotheses of Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and others. “On the other hand, the excess lead in sewage sludge during the 18 months before the public was notified of problems in October 2015, was only 14% higher than the corresponding time period before the switch to Flint River,” Roy noted.
By demonstrating that the water lead spiked
in summer 2014, but overall lead release was only slightly increased other time
periods, some seemingly contradictory and conflicting research perspectives on
the Flint Water Crisis are reconciled. Roy indicated that “There was a marked
elevation in water lead summer 2014, temporarily increasing the blood lead of
children, but the problems in the other months did not statistically impact lead
in sewage sludge or childrens blood lead compared to before the Flint Water
Crisis.”
Because
lead in biosolids was so strongly correlated to lead levels in Flint’s drinking
water, it was possible to estimate Flint’s water lead levels going back to 2011.
Roy and his Virginia Tech co-authors Dr. Min Tang and Marc Edwards, indicate that
during the worst month of the Flint Water Crisis (June 2014), the 90th percentile
water lead level was 77-98 ppb, well over the EPA action level of 15 ppb. Their
analysis also revealed that water lead and children’s blood lead levels also
spiked in tandem back in 2011, well before the Flint Water Crisis. Roy stated
“This indicates that even before corrosion control was abruptly interrupted in
April 2014, after the switch to Flint River, elevated water lead was probably a
significant issue in Flint.”
There
is also some good news. Roy’s analysis demonstrates that lead in water, lead in
sewage, and incidence of elevated blood lead in Flint children are now trending
to historically low values. Edwards points
out “This provides another set of independent scientific data, demonstrating
the effectiveness of the public health interventions including enhanced
disinfection, enhanced corrosion control and lead pipe replacement, and the steady
improvement in Flint drinking water quality since the switch back to Lake Huron
water in 2015.”
Funding
agency disclaimer: This research work was partially funded by the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency under Grant No. 8399375 “Untapping the Crowd:
Consumer Detection and Control of Lead in Drinking Water.” This research has
not been formally reviewed by EPA. The views expressed in the article are
solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Agency.
EPA does not endorse any products or commercial services mentioned in this
publication.
An investigative science reporting
series by Flintwaterstudy.org
NOTE FOR THE QUEASY:
This blog series involves heart-wrenching whistleblowing—the sort that comes from alleging misconduct of your own professional colleagues for actions harming the public and others. We cannot imagine that any reader is more sickened than we are, by having to air “dirty laundry” that includes sharing personal emails and discussing unethical behavior. But given the continued damage that would arise from remaining silent, we feel morally obligated to present evidence against FACHEP leadership in relation to:
– falsifying qualifications to win a multi-million dollar sole source grant during a federal emergency
– literally making a felony criminal case, out of legitimate criticism directed at their unprofessional work, which is best characterized as narcissistic victimization (a.k.a. “crybullying”)
– spreading malicious rumors, to ingratiate themselves with Flint residents at the expense of others
– violating the ASCE second canon, harming others through their incompetence
– wrongly taking credit for research ideas and data, belonging to others (e.g., Dr. Faust and Dr. Masten)
Please also be aware that FACHEP supporters have been FOIAing Flintwaterstudy, Dr. Edwards, Dr. Masten (MSU) and Dr. Maya Trotz (President AEESP) since Fall 2017. In fact, proving that no good deed goes unpunished, emails of 40+ members of our Flintwaterstudy team have been subpoenaed, for dozens of Michigan lawsuits and criminal cases that we are not even party to. Emails from the FOIA have been misrepresented by FACHEP supporters on social media to denigrate Virginia Tech undergraduate students, Dr. Sid Roy, Dr. Masten and Dr. Edwards. FACHEP faculty have even smeared Dr. Trotz as “unethical.” Dr. Edwards filed a defamation lawsuit, which is partly related to actions of FACHEP faculty and their supporters as described herein. The facts presented in this series shed light on how such an unthinkable tragedy could unfold.
Editors Note: Last week we discussed how Dr. Edwards’ FACHEP-instigated defamation case ended. This week we reveal how it began, with a phone call January 6th, 2017. Please note that we do not sell POU filters, we supported grants to Love/McElmurry to conduct POU filter research in Flint, and we are presently conducting POU filter research of our own. There are legitimate scientific questions surrounding all engineering interventions that deserve to be assessed with responsible science. It is irresponsible science that we have a problem with, especially if poorly conducted research is to become the basis of felony criminal charges, needless fearmongering, and serial strategic rumormongering.
Dr. Edwards read the above concluding statement to his
very first Flint Water Crisis hate email on January 10, 2017 at 1:25 pm. It was
not to be the last. The email asked him to “fess up” and “ease
his conscience” because Flint “water is not safe to bathe in” and that
the humanitarian POU filter “treatment of the water has caused bacteria
issues.” It went on to claim that Edwards was “poisoning children” and
causing “countless other horrendous affects” and warned of eternal
damnation.
Over the next few hours and days, more hateful emails trickled in, one of which had a helpful hint to “Watch your back” because (misspelling in original):
“…Wayne State <FACHEP> found dangerous bacteria in the filters causing rashes and shigell. The enterobactracie are obnormal and the water has to be boiled or UV’d or else we will diel. But you and the state hide the TRUTH! You have been bought and paid for and we now how to take care of peope like you. Stay out of Flint. We dont trust you any more. I hope you will DIE!
Upon reading the first message, Edwards was shocked, puzzled, and confused. He received the email during the Flint EPA Data Summit Meeting in Chicago at the EPA Region 5 Headquarters. Coincidentally, when he looked up from his Dell laptop, FACHEP’s Drs. Love, Zervos and McElmurry were facing him across the conference tables. Just minutes before, these same three FACHEP faculty had agreed that the Flint water was “much improved” and that Flint residents should keep using the POU filters. So what on earth was going on?
Perplexed, immediately after the meeting was over, Edwards approached the three FACHEP faculty at a Chicago airport gate, informing them of the threatening emails and other rumors. Their faces were completely expressionless and unsurprised, except for Dr. Love, who flashed a satisfied smirk.
As will be revealed below, Love had been working overtime on her filter bacteria fear campaign, which FACHEP had first rolled out December 14, 2016 at the Flint library. Love decided that Edwards was an obstacle to her Flint filter manifesto, and he would pay a price for it.
The first crafty attempt to require “boil filtered water” recommendations to many Flint residents, was through revisions to IRB protocols associated with FACHEP sampling. That attempt failed December 23, 2016 at 2 am in the morning, when Wells said such recommendations could only be given based on a positive E. Coli result.
She had been in communication with the journal editor, and indicated to her co-authors that he was “expecting” the manuscript submission by December 26, 2016 for a fast track review. If all went well, the paper could be published online before an upcoming EPA data summit (January 10, 2017) and Flint town hall meeting (January 11, 2017). In essence, the goal was to launch a sneak attack on the relief agencies at the January 10-11, 2017 meetings, forcing her recommendations on them with the authority of an accepted peer-reviewed journal article.
Shawn will be sending out the paper yet today- we’re trying to tone down the “political” statements at the end by keeping in the objective parts and removing the opinionated parts. We’ll need final feedback by Monday <December 26th> and upload it <that night>.
For those unfamiliar with the process, the idea of providing 10 co-authors a still incomplete draft of a peer-reviewed journal paper on Christmas Eve and expecting “final feedback” by December 26th is nothing short of absurd. Masten even spent much of her Christmas Day adding her contributions to the paper.
Ultimately, Love submitted the manuscript on December 28th, 2016, without Masten approving of this ethically dubious scheme or the final version of the paper (it is unclear if all other co-authors did approve, as required by the journal). Masten immediately reported her legal concerns to MSU administrators. When questioned, McElmurry claimed:
Because this manuscript was developed independently of the State of Michigan work, the funding agreement with the State is not applicable and there is no reason to solicit MDHHS review. On a side note, I maintain a close working relationship with the MDHHS and have already discussed these results with them; they are fully aware of this work.
The emails below make us doubt the truthfulness of this statement.
FACHEP TO DR. WELLS: NOTHING NEW ABOUT POU FILTER RISKS
By this point, Dr. Wells was probably beginning to realize that her sanity and legal jeopardy, would depend on developing a 6th sense relative to FACHEP antics and dishonesty. On January 5th, 2017, she correctly sensed something was amiss in relation to the upcoming meetings at Chicago (EPA) and in Flint, and explicitly emailed McElmurry and Love, desperately trying to pin them down on future plans regarding POU filter messaging.
For example,
Wells asked the professors three very basic yet important questions:
What is the
threat <they are trying to fix>?
Is the
threat isolated to Flint, or to all users of <POU> filters in any county
or state?
What risk to
health is being mitigated by the flushing?
In response to each of these perfectly reasonable questions posed, McElmurry and Love responded “Unknown, unknown, unknown.”
Significantly, at no point did McElmurry mention their ES&T Letters paper, which Masten had just argued that they were legally obligated to disclose to MDHSS 30 days prior to submission. This confirms our suspicion that the paper was written specifically to blind side Dr. Wells and the relief agencies. Note that in her response to Masten, Love wrote that the paper would “get a reaction no matter what,” and that <Love> was “not worried about the State <of MI>.“
FACHEP TO DR. EDWARDS: EVERYTHING NEW ABOUT FILTER RISKS
On January 5th, 2017, just eight minutes before writing the above email to Dr. Wells, McElmurry and Love emailed Edwards and asked for a “Quick phone call before the January 10th <EPA data summit> meeting.” In the call, Love and McElmurry would assert that they were upending the conventional wisdom about POU filter risks–completely contradicting their written claims of “Unknown, unknown, unknown” risks to Wells.
Of course, McElmurry did not tell Edwards how FACHEP was already using a false story about that same email to smear Edwards, by claiming Edwards asked McElmurry to sign a document claiming that Flint water was “safe.” He also did not reveal that, while FACHEP would privately tell other scientists that Flint water was obviously “much improved,” they would publicly state the exact opposite in order to win over Flint activists and gleefully malign Edwards.
Love further asserted that the type of POU filter distributed by relief agencies was inappropriate for the situation in Flint and that such filters were not widely used elsewhere in America. Edwards immediately corrected that inaccurate statement, verbally and immediately after the phone call in writing. To repeat for emphasis, on January 6th, 2017, Drs. Love and McElmurry appeared unaware that the type of POU filters distributed in Flint, were voluntarily purchased and installed in tens of millions of U.S. homes to remove lead and disinfection by-products (DBPs).
Summarizing the essence of the shocking phone call to his colleague, Pruden, Edwards wrote: “Nancy <Love> at her worst.”
FACHEP: POU FILTERS CAUSE RASHES/RESPIRATORY PROBLEMS
Extremely concerned, Edwards broadened the email conversation to include Dr. Wells (MDHSS) and EPA, who FACHEP was also intentionally keeping in the dark about the ES&T Letters submittal and associated plans. Edwards wrote to all parties:
In the call you <FACHEP> also speculated that there is a problem with fecal contamination in the Flint system, due to main breaks or other deficiencies, If the Flint water system is currently unusually fecal contaminated and compromised…, then the Flint water is dangerous with or without the filters. If you actually discover fecal bacteria, the accepted response is to increase chlorine and/or issue boil water orders…
The residents also have received a message from your team, that you think the filter bacteria might be causing their rashes and respiratory problems.
Edwards then phoned Dr. Wells, who for the first time, confided her frustration about FACHEP’s irresponsible undermining of the relief efforts with Edwards. She noted Love showed disrespect for input from Subject Matter Experts (SMEs), like CDC’s Dr. Michael Beach. Wells sounded utterly exhausted, and apparently had no choice but to try and work with FACHEP as best she could.
FACHEP and UM Team, These <Edwards points> are precisely the concerns that I raised at our Friday morning meeting. …There was definitely a problem with communication at your town meeting that implicated somehow rashes and respiratory diseases were associated with filter bacteria….
McElmurry’s response to Wells was superficially conciliatory, feigning confusion about where on earth residents could have ever been given the idea that rashes and other disease were coming from filters:
We understand there is some confusion and likely misinterpretation that arose from our meeting on December 14. We are not entirely clear about where exactly the misunderstanding about rashes and respiratory illness comes from…
…Here’s the issue Marcus, is that exactly what about bacteria and filters causes rashes…you’re making a leap that somehow Bactrian filters causes rash disease and I would like to know where your information is coming from. Again – anecdotes or not acceptable- Please provide me the clinical information that shows the bacteria on a filter causes rashes or respiratory diseases.
we should not accept organisms like klebsiella and Enterobacter, and atypical mycobacteria and enterococcus in potable water amplified by filters as safe. ….Enterocccus among other bacteria that Nancy found are fecal indicators.
Again you’re making an unfounded association and implication where there isn’t one. What you’re essentially saying is that eczema, of which I am a sufferer, can be due to the use of my filter and that people who have been using bacteria filters for the last three decades may likely be getting eczema from their water filters?
At that point, the back and forth suddenly stopped, because unbeknownst to Dr. Wells, FACHEP received an email from ES&T Letters.
LOVE’S FILTER MANIFESTO IMPLODES
On January 9th, 2017 at 9:07 am, Dr. Love received the following email from the Editor, about her Flint filter manifesto paper.
Dear Dr. Love:
…I regret to inform you that the manuscript cannot be accepted for publication in ES&T Letters….the reviewers all expressed serious reservations regarding the suitability of your manuscript for publication. Their major concerns were:
1. The finding that bacterial numbers are initially elevated in water from a filter is not novel or important. This has been well known for many years, and numbers of bacteria alone tell you nothing about the safety of the water.
2. The finding that the filters are working as expected is not particularly a novel result. <Given that such a paper would stimulate>…fears of bacterial “contamination”(which may or more likely may not be harmful), rapid publication of an incomplete story is a concern.
In an instant, Love’s plans to
unveil her paper at the January 10 EPA data summit and January 11, 2017 Town
Hall meeting imploded. Even worse, all four anonymous reviewers had the exact same
opinion that had been expressed to Love by the relief agencies for 6 straight months.
I’m not surprised by the reviews since, as Shawn knows, I was uncomfortable with parts of it….this gap was obvious to the reviewers…I know we had a strategy for why we wanted this paper out quickly and by January 10…Going forward, I only want to put papers in when the data are ready…
The mourning over the rejection of their ES&T Letters filter manifesto manuscript dream was apparently brief. With renewed vigor, the team launched a delusional crybully tale, in which Edwards was the villain responsible for their paper being rejected, and Love was a “silenced” victim heroically fighting for Flint residents. Despite the fact that there were 4 anonymous reviews on the paper, Dr. Zervos later recommended that the group should “resubmit <the filter paper> somewhere else and ask for Edwards not to be a reviewer because there is a conflict of interest.”
The death threats and emails declaring Edwards’ soul to be eternally damned, for somehow silencing Dr. Love’s alleged discovery of abnormal bacteria on the Flint POU filters, literally started the day after her filter manifesto manuscript was rejected by ES&T Letters. Ironically, when he opened the first emails, he was sitting in a Chicago meeting where the FACHEP faculty were publicly stating one position, while their rumormongering to Flint residents was communicating the exact opposite position.
DR. LOVE IN THE DRAFT BOOK “FLINT FIGHTS BACK”
Pauli’s draft book chapter once again provides revelatory insights into the lies FACHEP told themselves and Flint residents. First, there is not one word in the book chapter, about FACHEP’s POU filter fearmongering being soundly rejected in a peer-reviewed article submitted in late December 2016.
Pauli was a co-author on the manuscript, so this omission should not be due to lack of knowledge on his part; however, we found no record he ever read or approved the ES&T Letters manuscript. The very fact that a social scientist, specializing in anarchy and radicalism, was co-author of a peer-reviewed technical paper is also a mystery, except that he was deftly using Love’s filter manifesto as a prop in his Flint anarchy experiments.
In relation to the January 6th phone call between Love, McElmurry, and Edwards that is meticulously documented with emails herein, Pauli writes (read the last page here):
Worried that Edwards was “backing himself into a corner” by rushing to judgment before all the <POU filter bacteria> data were in, McElmurry and Love tried to get him to reconsider his position on a conference call in the lead up to the Chicago <January 10th 2016 EPA data> summit.
“That just failed,” Love recalls. “He just didn’t wanna hear it.” Instead, at the summit Edwards accused FACHEP of causing “much of Flint” to lose faith in the filters, offering only anecdotal evidence.
If anyone was backed into a corner, it was Dr. Love, who with no significant experience, took a scientific position on POU filters contrary to a unified consensus position of WHO, FEMA, CDC, EPA, MDEQ, MDHHS, GCHD and Dr. Edwards during a water emergency. And who on earth was “rushing to judgment,” if not Dr. Love, who drove colleagues to give up their holidays, to submit a rush job paper she was “uncomfortable” with using data that was not “ready”?
By January 2017, Dr. Love and FACHEP had literally invested 6 months of effort into rumormongering about alleged dangers of the POU filters in Flint. Many Flint residents believed that WSU/UM, were on the verge of publishing papers proving POU filters were dangerous–we will later see how Dr. Love actively encouraged that belief.
The FACHEP team of quintessential faculty crybullies were well on their way, to weaving conspiracy stories involving all of the relief agencies, Wells, Edwards, and even EPA Whistleblower Miguel del Toral. This would reach a public crescendo at the January 11, 2017 Flint Town Hall Meeting, and also lead to the Edwards defamation case (now dismissed) and the ongoing Wells felony criminal felony trial.
My meaning is to work what wonders love hath wrought, Wherewith I muse why men of wit have love so dearly bought; For love is worse than hate, and eke more harm hath done: Record I take of those that rede of Paris, Priam’s son. It seemed the God of sleep had mazed so much his wits When he refused wit for love, which cometh but by fits; But why accuse I him, whom earth hath covered long? There be of his posterity alive, I do him wrong. Whom I might well condemn to be a cruel judge Unto myself, who hath the crime in others that I grudge.
The decision is a victory for FACHEP and friends and their lawyer Bill Moran. Oftentimes, the loser in such cases makes a desperate attempt to claim the glass is somehow half-full. But that would be dishonest, so we herein acknowledge the victors, and turn our focus to the question: If what transpired was not illegal, was it ethical?
Federal Judge Urbanski ruled that the Flintcomplaints letter signed by FACHEP faculty Dr. Ben Pauli, Dr. Laura Sullivan (Kettering University) and their friend, Dr. Yanna Lambrinidou, used wording that achieved a dubious standard, of being too hyperbolic to be trustworthy. The judge described the Flintcomplaints Letter that these three FACHEP and friend PhD faculty endorsed, as follows:
“<The Letter>…is replete with emotional and polemical language, rhetorical hyperbole, and unmistakable indicia of partisanship. Indeed, there is absolutely no pretense of objectivity or disinterestedness…”
”..the authors express their frustration with Edwards about a formal complaint he allegedly filed against a Wayne State University professor <Dr. McElmurry>.
“…there is a definite and palpable current of exasperation throughout the Letter,..The emphasis on the first-person tense……The sum effect of the format, tone, and content of the Letter is to make it unmistakably clear that its contents are of a partisan character…..”
“Moreover … the exasperated tenor, advocative style, and responsive posture would invariably lead a reasonable reader person to expect something less than scrupulous factual accuracy.”
In a post-truth world, what constitutes libel is changing, as described in the recent article “Too Hyperbolic to Be Believed”. Specifically if you make a sufficiently outrageous (i.e., “rhetorical hyperbole”) false statement about someone, the legal system assumes that “no reasonable person could believe” it. By legal definition, if a reasonable reader should doubt it, then it is not defamatory.
Ironically, Dr. Edwards filed the lawsuit and is authoring this blog series, precisely because he expects FACHEP faculty and friends with PhDs to be held accountable for anything ‘less than scrupulous factual accuracy” when it comes to all work conducted in Flint.
For eight months, we have been perplexed, by the question of “Who authored the hyperbolic Flintcomplaints letter—and why?” With the advantage of FOIA emails unavailable when the lawsuit was filed in August 2018, and which were also unavailable to the judge when he rendered his decision (because new evidence cannot be provided after a case is filed), we can now shed more light on this mystery.
Herein, we examine evidence that shows that the Flintcomplaints letter and anonymously owned websites defending FACHEP and attacking Dr. Edwards were, at least partly, orchestrated by……FACHEP and friends.
All extremely logical and factual responses Dr. Edwards. You will always win in the court of science and facts but that’s clearly not how these folks play. The hubris of this group <FACHEP> for attacking someone for noticing gross fabrications and probable lying under oath is pathetic.
Good assignment for an undergraduate media class to figure out who the heck is actually behind such ‘sites’ as “flintcomplaints.com” and what their ultimate goals are, revenge, defamation, money, other? Probably a dirtier soup than the original Flint River water.
CLUE #2: WHO WROTE FLINTCOMPLAINTS
Acting on a tip, we submitted a FOIA for emails of a professor we never heard of before: Dr. Britt Holbrook (NJIT Assistant Professor of Humanities). Unfortunately, even though over 2000 pages of responsive emails were discovered 8 months ago, not one of them has yet been turned over to us.
But as part of the
FOIA appeal process, NJIT was required to file a document, describing the
general nature of emails that were withheld. That document revealed Dr.
Holbrook corresponded not only with FACHEP friend Dr. Yanna Lambrinidou, but also
with FACHEP faculty including Dr. Ben Pauli (Kettering) and Dr. Nancy Love
(University of Michigan).
March 26, 2018-April 1, 2018 (11 pages). Email discussion re: Virginia Tech researcher Dr. Marc Edwards’ testimony about Flint, Michigan water emergency and attached draft letter from Kettering Assistant Professor Benjamin Pauli addressing unfair criticism by Dr. Edwards against the Flint Area Community Health and Environmental Partnership (FACHEP)
March 26, 2018-April 4, 2018 (26 pages). Email chain including additional discussion re: the possibility of Benjamin Pauli filing a complaint against Dr. Edwards pursuant to ASCE’s ethics and complaint procedures and providing link to ASCE’s ethics page.
March 26, 2018-May 8, 2018. “…request for Dr. Holbrook to provide feedback re Benjamin Pauli’s (Kettering University) proposed letter to AAAS and ASEE.”
May 8, 2018. “Email discussion re: location for meeting in Wash., DC on May 9, 2018.”
The day after the above
May 9th 2018 meeting, the “hyperbolic” Flintcomplaints letter was sent
to AAAS, AEESP, Virginia Tech, NAE and many other Science, Technology,
Engineering and Math (STEM) groups.
Although the Flintcomplaints
letter was judged too hyperbolic to be trusted by a reasonable reader, many of
the STEM organizations were forced to examine this letter seriously.
Let’s consider the increasingly likely possibility, that FACHEP and friends PhD faculty, met in DC on May 9 to discuss Dr. Pauli’s letter, which morphed into the hyperbolic Flintcomplaints letter mailed May 10, 2018. Re-reading the whole Flintcomplaints letter with that thought in mind, reveals that about half the hyperbolic letter, defends the actions of FACHEP faculty– even echoing some of the words endorsed by Dr. Love, Lambrinidou and Pauli back in late March 2018.
Further, recall that a June 28, 2018 posting on the Flintcomplaints Facebook page acknowledges that the hyperbolic Letter, was “crafted for us” Flint residents. And a reporter from East Village Magazine noted that authorship of this letter was “being strategically cloaked,” but “multiple local activists were involved.” Were Dr. Lambrinidou, Pauli, Sullivan, Love and Holbrook, those who “crafted” a letter for Flint residents to sign? Was this hyperbolic letter, considered a viable alternative, to publicly filing an ethics complaint against Dr. Edwards as discussed early April 2018?
CLUE #3: DR. PAULI (FACHEP) PERSONALLY SOLICITS
SIGNATORIES
I have been following up with many of you individually and I just want to say how deeply appreciative I am of the support. This situation has been a bit of a nightmare for those of us in the middle of it–it has made people fearful for their careers and even their personal safety, and it has sucked up a massive amount of time that could have been spent on a great many other things. It has also been deeply damaging to the community. At the same time, the pushback we are seeing at multiple levels has the makings of something truly historic and inspiring.
We adamantly dispute any implication that Dr. Edwards ever endangered the personal safety of anyone and would like to see a shred of evidence supporting such an accusation. What is truly mystifying here, is why Dr. Pauli and FACHEP themselves spent so much time and energy undermining the credibility of every other entity operating in Flint (i.e., MDHSS, GCHD, CDC, EPA, and Virginia Tech), rather than devoting their energy to the trust-building work they promised when accepting FACHEP funding. Likewise, we simply cannot fathom the mentality of any PhD faculty, who would describe the hyperbolic Flintcomplaints letter as “truly historic and inspiring”.
CLUE #4: PAULI, LAMBRINIDOU AND THE SECOND LETTER
We will now detail the actions of Dr. Pauli and Lambrinidou, as explicitly documented in emails related to a second “letter to STEM from academics” that also spoke out against Dr. Edwards.
Step 1: On June 2, 2018, FACHEP’s Dr. Pauli grew concerned that the first Flintcomplaints letter was not sufficiently damaging to Dr. Edwards because “the press release sent out a few days ago to announce the <Flintcomplaints> letter failed to get any traction”. Pauli then emailed numerous false statements to a group of social science faculty, none of whom Edwards had ever heard of, including a preposterous claim that Edwards had been sending “aggressive emails” to Melissa Mays because she signed the Flintcomplaints letter. Edwards sent no such emails to Mays.
Step 2: On June 30, 2018, Pauli then wrote the professors:
“The letter of support for the residents’ complaint is more critical and urgent than ever…Yanna <Dr. Lambrinidou>, can you set up a website that could host the letter and that would allow fellow academics to sign in support?”
From reading this, we get a clear sense that Pauli and Lambrinidou have done this before (i.e., Flintcomplaints). Upset at the escalating attacks, Edwards filed his defamation case 4 days later.
“Since I am not a signatory to the letter….I am also being very careful about what I say about the letter in general…. because then it might look like I’m the spokesperson for the letter (even if I don’t address it directly), which is something we absolutely must avoid if we want this thing to have its intended impact [on Dr. Edwards].”
Step 4: Pauli then informs the signatories of his letter that if Dr. Edwards should call them to discuss matters, then they should give Edwards the “cold shoulder” because “this letter, like the residents’ letter, is not for him.” He reminds these faculty how important it is that this effort “goes viral.” The letter is then released.
“Even if every word of the residents’ letter was a lie, it is hard to see how anyone in their right mind could think that what Edwards is doing is appropriate. There are already signs that this latest outrage is opening up cracks in Edwards’ reputation, even with sympathizers.”
Coincidentally, Dr. Pauli happens to be working on further cashing in on the Flint Water Crisis in general, and the Flintcomplaints and Flintaccountability letters, by writing a book about it. Due to the fact Dr. Pauli emailed copies of the draft chapter all over the country to malign Edwards, we obtained a copy pursuant to FOIA law.
The draft chapter reveals an academic version of Fire Fighter arson. First, we have argued in this series, that FACHEP repeatedly (figuratively) started fires with residents, by intentionally maligning other academics and public health agencies. They then presented themselves as heroic figures battling the imagined enemies.
In relation to Edwards, Pauli goes further to write about how residents rose up to defend FACHEP, by first authoring and then signing onto the hyperbolic Flintcomplaints letter. In his emails, Pauli alternates between a claim that residents wrote Flintcomplaints, or that activists wrote it, dependent on the audience. All the while Pauli acts as if he is a dispassionate observer of the unfolding events, rather than the instigator he was. Why won’t Pauli honestly admit he played a role in authoring the letter?
For those who are interested in reading this tale, we provide a copy of the draft chapter covering the time period of our blogs 1-10 (read here). For those who do not have the time, we can tell you that the book mentions virtually none of the FACHEP problems we revealed in blog parts 1-10. There is almost nothing about the clashes between FACHEP and Dr. Wells (MDHHS), or FACHEP’s friction with health messaging of other public agencies through January 2017. Of course, there is also nothing at all mentioned regarding FACHEP’s rumormongering about a shigella outbreak coming from water.
And in the most stunning development yet, 40 residents signed a letter in protest of Edwards’s attack on FACHEP and behavior toward the community generally, sending it to a variety of professional engineering and scientific associations and calling for an independent investigation. After the letter was posted online to Flintcomplaints.com, signatures from residents and outside supporters continued to stream in. Edwards, denouncing what he called the. letter’s “many false claims” and depicting it as a plot by Melissa Mays to smear him, pledged to track down each of its signatories individually and ask them whether they agreed with its every last word.
Here we can see several dimensions to Dr. Pauli’s dishonesty. First, he again hides any personal role in planning, writing, orchestrating or seeking signatories for the “stunning..letter in protest of Edwards’s attack on FACHEP.”
We also do not feel Edwards was “depicting <the letter> as a plot by Melissa Mays to smear him.” Here is the full quote from the cited East Village Magazine source:
Edwards asserted the flintcomplaints.com letter had been written, and primarily represented the views of water activist Melissa Mays, though he said it is not all about her. “This is about an attack on expertise,” Edwards said in a phone call today. When his detractors — some of whom he said were from academia — “started to attack our engineering expertise, it all went off the rails. It’s a different world view, entirely — what we’ve been calling science anarchy, a populist, anti-elite movement that’s affected all our institutions.This is a new battlefield in a war over science, instigated by professors. This is coming from academia, spurred on by people who are not engineers.”
We therefore disagree with the storyline presented in Pauli’s book, and we discovered numerous factual errors in the draft chapter that always err towards glorifying FACHEP and maligning others. Overall, when it comes to the book, we recall what Federal Judge Urbanski wrote about the Flintcomplaints letter:
An “…unmistakable indicia of partisanship…frustration with Edwards about a formal complaint he allegedly filed against a Wayne State University professor….a reasonable reader person <should> expect something less than scrupulous factual accuracy.”
SOME
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
Regrettably, none of the revelatory emails and insights presented above, were available to us when Dr. Edwards’ defamation case was first formulated and filed. Consequently, these insights were also unavailable, for the judge to consider when the defamation case was dismissed.
It is truly shocking to witness how FACHEP and friends PhD faculty, played a role in orchestrating the hyperbolic Flintcomplaints letter, from its conception to its promotion. FACHEP did not publicly and transparently debate Edwards. Instead, FACHEP hid behind the Flintcomplaints curtain, an action Pauli considers “historic and inspiring.”
Actually putting in writing that a motive for the letters, was to damage Edwards reputation, and inherent dishonesty in how the letters were represented to academics, academic organizations, and the public, is also extremely disturbing. Is this the kind of behavior the State of Michigan should expect from academics with public research funding? It is especially troubling because Drs. Love, Holbrook and Lambrinidou frequently claim engineering ethics expertise.
While maybe “no reasonable person could believe” the above story at first glance, read the emails and decide for yourself. Indeed, it is “a dirtier soup than the original Flint River water.” It may not be illegal, but it is ethical?
An investigative science reporting
series by Flintwaterstudy.org
NOTE FOR THE QUEASY:
This blog series involves heart-wrenching whistleblowing—the sort that comes from alleging misconduct of your own professional colleagues for actions harming the public and others. We cannot imagine that any reader is more sickened than we are, by having to air “dirty laundry” that includes sharing personal emails and discussing unethical behavior. But given the continued damage that would arise from remaining silent, we feel morally obligated to present evidence against FACHEP leadership in relation to:
– falsifying qualifications to win a multi-million dollar sole source grant during a federal emergency
– literally making a felony criminal case, out of legitimate criticism directed at their unprofessional work, which is best characterized as narcissistic victimization (a.k.a. “crybullying”)
– spreading malicious rumors, to ingratiate themselves with Flint residents at the expense of others
– violating the ASCE second canon, harming others through their incompetence
– wrongly taking credit for research ideas and data, belonging to others (e.g., Dr. Faust and Dr. Masten)
Please also be aware that FACHEP supporters have been FOIAing Flintwaterstudy, Dr. Edwards, Dr. Masten (MSU) and Dr. Maya Trotz (President AEESP) since Fall 2017. In fact, proving that no good deed goes unpunished, emails of 40+ members of our Flintwaterstudy team have been subpoenaed, for dozens of Michigan lawsuits and criminal cases that we are not even party to. Emails from the FOIA have been misrepresented by FACHEP supporters on social media to denigrate Virginia Tech undergraduate students, Dr. Sid Roy, Dr. Masten and Dr. Edwards. FACHEP faculty have even smeared Dr. Trotz as “unethical.” Dr. Edwards has filed a defamation lawsuit, which is partly related to actions of FACHEP faculty and their supporters as described herein. The facts presented in this series shed light on how such an unthinkable tragedy could unfold.
Part X. Conclusion of First LARA Investigation into Dr. McElmurry
The findings from our LARA complaint regarding Dr. Shawn McElmurry have finally been released. We are very impressed by the professionalism of the investigation. While we wish that the process were quicker, the stakes are high, and we are pleased that there is due process and a presumption of innocence.
In summary, I believe that in at least two instances (e-mail to Edwards and NIH grant proposal cited above) Dr. McElmurry overstated his prior involvement in City of Flint’s drinking water system and contamination issues. These overstatements were intended to both solicit/attract external contributions by other experts (e.g., Edwards) to his research team and to substantiate large research awards/funds for Wayne State University and other contributors. In an additional two instances, two respected members involved in drinking water research (Faust and Masten) and McElmurry’s work have both cited improprieties of similar nature. Apparently under oath and in response to the LARA Complaint, McElmurry has been unable to substantiate prior City of Flint experience. As a result, these overstatements regarding City of Flint experience are deemed to be “misrepresentations” in a professional setting based on my review work.
Second, in relation to allegations McElmurry appropriated of the work of Dr. Faust to win grants, the investigator concluded:
My conclusion is that Faust’s dissertation and body of knowledge were used by McElmurry to assist in securing research funding without proper reference/credit and that Dr. Faust was not a part of ensuing research work.
The investigation also cited a potential “pattern of professional misconduct” and dishonesty that LARA considered deserving of follow-up scrutiny.
Based on the evidence available to LARA as of October 2018, there was a suggestion that this embellishment of experience truly was misrepresentation and a violation of the Occupational Code, Section 339.604 Items (c) and (d) on occupational conduct and moral character. Yet, back in October 2018, there was inadequate evidence to determine there was a violation of the current standards of practice and professional conduct/or professional engineers. LARA noted they are considering additional evidence submitted by Dr. Susan Masten in further evaluating this case. We will also be submitting additional information and LARA has agreed to consider it.
The “Very Confusing” Saga of McElmurry’s Complete Flint Hydraulic Model
“..it was very confusing what information was available. I had initially thought the City of Flint provided Dr. Abraham, Kasey Faust and me with a fully functioning <complete hydraulic> model of the Flint water distribution system. ..This understanding turned out to be incorrect.”
Conflicting McElmurry and WSU Statements on Flint Hydraulic Model.
Date
Statement
10/7/2015
Email from McElmurry to Edwards: “I have done a fair amount of work on Pb exposure and have worked in
Flint in the past. As a result of this past work, I have a working hydraulic
model of the Flint drinking water system.”
10/8/2015
Email from McElmurry to Faust: “Kasey, I took a look at the epanet <hydraulic> model of Flint
you used for your dissertation. It doesn’t look like it was complete, at
least the one you sent me. Do you have a complete model of the system?”
10/8/2015
Email Faust to McElmurry: “Yes
I do- I’ll have to find it on my hard drive when I get home…….Is GIs okay
with you?” <FAUST FORWARDS MCELMURRY
COMPLETE HYDRAULIC MODEL>
≈ 10/10/2015
McElmurry written statement to NIH, forwarded to Edwards by email
on 10/12/2015. Bold emphasis in original.
“Over the last 5 years the PI
(McElmurry) has conducted research focused on how to best adapt Flint’s
existing water infrastructure to changes in population and industrial
demand. As a result of this work, the team already possesses a complete
hydraulic model of Flint’s drinking water system. We will utilize this
model….”
10/6/2017
Sworn Testimony of Dr. Larry Reynolds in Lyon, on why he recommended McElmurry to lead FACHEP: “ I recommended Doctor Shawn McElmurry, an
environmental engineer at Wayne State because he had done hydraulic modeling
for the city of Flint I think within the past year <2015>..”
4/30/2018
McElmurry’s written response to LARA: “..it was very
confusing what information was available. I had initially thought the City of
Flint provided Dr. Abraham, Kasey Faust and me with a fully functioning model
of the Flint water distribution system.
..This understanding turned out to be incorrect.”
8/16/2018
Wayne State University to Edwards: “McElmurry
had no hydraulic …model” in 2015
Dr. Love’s Unqualified Support for Dr. McElmurry
We take issue with certain statements made in the documentation provided by Drs. McElmurry, Love and Sullivan on the case (see documents below). We will allow Flintwaterstudy readers to dissect these for themselves, and address these concerns in future blogs, including Dr. Love’s concluding statement that “Dr. Shawn McElmurry is one of the most ethically-bound individuals I have had the honor to work with.”
In her letter, Love cites McElmurry as an ethical exemplar for NSPE Canon 1, 2, 3, 5 and 6. According to themselves, Dr. Love and McElmurry are true icons of ethical integrity and action. We provide a montage tribute to their professional relationship and high opinion of each other (and themselves) below.
But we do believe that it is important to point out four misleading statements made by Dr. Love in her letter, which will later be revealed, to be part of a multi-year campaign to portray Dr. Edwards as unethical.
1) “<Edwards> noted one reason for leaving <the University of Colorado> was because of a conflict he had with another faculty member.”
As detailed in the attached e-mail from Dr. Mark Hernandez, Dr. Edwards indeed had conflicts with a Department Chair at the University of Colorado, who would not honor start-up packages promised to junior faculty during recruitment. Hernandez has frequently and publicly recounted this conflict as an example of Edwards high ethical standards and integrity (read email confirmation here). This is part of a pattern, in which Love interprets actions that most would consider ethical (e.g., Edwards helping Dr. Hernandez receive his startup package or paying for humanitarian research out of his own pocket in the D.C. Lead Crisis) through her own unique lens to malign Dr. Edwards.
2) “Dr. Kasey Faust is an assistant professor who found herself being FOIAed by a full professor <Edwards>…she is one of three untenured assistant professors across three different states that I know of who have been FOIAed, pressured or harassed by the complainant <Edwards> over the last two years. In academic circles, this type of behavior is absolutely inappropriate and can be grounds for removal.”
Wow. Dr. Edwards is a truly evil person who should be investigated and probably fired for such unethical behavior. Future blogs will reveal the extraordinary efforts that Dr. Love made in order to make that happen from 2016 to present. In the meantime, we only point out that Dr. Edwards never FOIAed Dr. Faust. Moreover, Dr. Faust will be meeting with both Pruden and Edwards at Virginia Tech in a few weeks, and their relationship has been collegial ever since Edwards first phoned Faust in early 2018.
3) “I have had multiple experiences with <Edwards> aggressive tactics and efforts to silence me <Love>, even from the time when I was a faculty member at Virginia Tech. I have tried to give him the benefit of the doubt and assumed he has moved on and chosen to behave more appropriately and professionally, but several of his actions over the last two years indicate that he has not. He has taken multiple steps that are, in my view, unacceptable and inconsistent with the ASCE ethics codes he likes to quote.
4) “When Hurricane Harvey hit the Texas coast September 2017, a senior faculty member at the University of Texas (UT) contacted me <Love> about helping them to gear up for the emergency response needs…. I included Shawn in the discussions,.. …this gracious act was quite typical of Shawn’s manner – in service to the community….”
FOIA documents tell a different story. FACEBOOK messages prove that Dr. McElmurry first contacted Dr. Faust on Hurricane Harvey work on 8-30-2017. McElmurry wrote Faust: “I’ve been approach from nih program manager asking if we can take flint experience to Houston…We need to talk. I need someone local and you are perfect given your work….I would love to work e <sic> with your again. Felt bad Flint thing never panned out…so fucking political.” On this basis, it would appear, that McElmurry was once again coming to Dr. Faust to seek help in getting NIH funding. Note that this was before Dr. Faust realized what McElmurry had done on the 2015 NIH grant, using her work without permission and then cutting her out of the resulting funding.
Complete LARA Summary Report
We below provide complete text from the LARA summary report (emphasis in red was added, all other emphasis is original). Dr. Edwards filed the complaint and Dr. McElmurry is the “Licensee.” This text comes from converting a pdf file, so there could be minor typos. The original pdf file is provided. We will allow Flintwaterstudy readers to read all of these documents for themselves, without further comment from us at this time.
LARA REPORT
Did the Licensee falsify or misrepresent his professional qualifications ifhe incorrectly stated that his experience included working in Flint for 5 years?
In an e-mail dated October 12, 2015 from McElmurry to Dr. Marc Edwards, a summary of his NIH Rapid Response proposal was offered with a note that such would be changing. This e-mail appeared to be written as part McElmurry’s efforts to solicit Edwards to join his planned research team but ultimately this did not happen. Statements therein read “our team (part of the NSF funded Water@ Wayne Group) is currently working together and able to respond with this rapid assessment based on our intimate understanding of the Flint regional water system and social infrastructure. Over the last 5 years the PI (McElmurry) has conducted research focused on how to best adapt Flint’s existing water infrastructure to changes in population and industrial demand. As a result of this work, the team already possesses a complete hydraulic model of Flint’s drinking water system.”
The biographical sketch of Dr. Shawn McElmurry included in this revised NIH SF 424 Submission dated November 2, 2015 contains very little detail of McElmurry’s professional experience prior to and from 2010 (year he was awarded a PhD) through 2015. In particular, there is no mention of any prior experience associated with the City of Flint water system in either experience summaries or in published works (as lead or contributor). No significant research works or other professional qualifications were offered in McElmurry’s response to the Complaint dated April 30, 2018 wherein he should have identified any prior experience gained in addressing the City of Flint drinking water system. In fact, there was little information presented defending his ability to lead and conduct the NIH/National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) grant research and Flint Area Community Health and Environment Partnership research specific to the City of Flint (FACHEP; as commissioned by a grant from the State of Michigan, Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS)). It is not believed that Dr. McElmurry was ever contracted by the City of Flint for any service nor did he have any stated, direct experience with the City’s drinking water system.
I did access a website containing dialog posted by Dr. Marc Edwards (Reference G) concerning McElmurry’s credentials, wherein there is dialog apparently extracted out of State of Michigan court proceedings where a third party questioned McElmurry on his Flint experience. It is uncertain whether this dialog is factual; certainly there is conflict between Edwards and McElmurry at this time. However, it does identify a trend wherein McElmurry was unable to define any specific projects, research, consulting, precise timeline, or correspondence defending any prior Flint experience.
The Investigation Report produced by Stephanie Murphy (State of Michigan, LARA) dated June 20, 2018 contains a witness statement from Dr. Kasey Faust, for whom Dr. McElmurry provided external review of her Ph.D thesis from 2013 to 2015. Faust identifies that McElmurry gained access to a significant amount of City of Flint data and a hydraulic model which she developed in her thesis preparation.While McElmurry may have commented on thesis works as a reviewer, he was certainly not a part of a “research team” preparing such. Rather than indicating this relationship and source of Flint knowledge base, the NIH grant proposal incorrectly references loosely related “external works”. Faust also states that she did not provide permission to McElmurry to use this research/dissertation nor was she included in any defined team to contribute this knowledge/research/expertise where such could have benefitted society and public safety.
A letter from Dr. Nancy Love (University of Michigan, College of Engineering) to Ms. Stephanie Murphy Michigan, Bureau of Professional Licensing) dated June 1, 2018 in Reference A alternately offered strong support for Dr. McElmurry’s character and high ethical/professional standards. Drs. Love and McElmurry served together in research conducted under the FACHEP beginning in late 2015 with no prior collaboration found in my literature search.
However, notes from interviews with Dr. Susan Masten of Michigan State University conducted by Mr. Jon Campbell (State of Michigan, LARA; Reference E) on July 26 and August 6, 2018 regarding Dr. McElrnurry’s conduct on the FACHEP research work concluded that repeated incidents of “ghost” authorship (where authors who contributed substantially to McElmurry’s work were omitted), misappropriation of intellectual property (plagiarism), denial of earned authorship, and falsification of his actual experience record all occurred. A second complaint to LARA regarding these concerns and providing evidence to such is expected to be filed by Dr. Masten.
McElmurry’s provided listing of his publications and prior research in the NIH grant proposal contains a diverse list of topics beyond drinking water research, including energy and stormwater topics. There are no citations associated with the City of Flint, or other similar research.
In summary, I believe that in at least two instances (e-mail to Edwards and NIH grant proposal cited above) Dr. McElmurry overstated his prior involvement in City of Flint’s drinking water system and contamination issues. These overstatements were intended to both solicit/attract external contributions by other experts (e.g., Edwards) to his research team and to substantiate large research awards/funds for Wayne State University and other contributors. In an additional two instances, two respected members involved in drinking water research (Faust and Masten) and McElmurry’s work have both cited improprieties of similar nature. Apparently under oath and in response to the LARA Complaint, McElmurry has been unable to substantiate prior City of Flint experience. As a result, these overstatements regarding City of Flint experience are deemed to be “misrepresentations” in a professional setting based on my review work.
Did the Licensee seek professional employment based on his qualifications, competence, and ability to properly accomplish the employment sought when applying for the NIH and FACHEP proposals/grants?
Dr. McElmurry was professionally employed by Wayne State University (WSU) at the time that the complaint was filed. Consideration was given as to whether “seeking professional employment” applies to a situation where a professionally employed person uses such stature and credentials to secure research funding. Brief review of external literature sources did not identify any cases where external research activities constitute “professional employment”. In fact, McElmurry’s employment by WSU likely was based completion of both academic service (teaching) and completion of research work. There was no suggestion that he was seeking alternate employment from WSU through pursuit of NIH/FACHEP research awards and subsequent work involved WSU and other university staff and students. It is common for university researchers to pursue research funding from multiple and various sources, as part of substantiating their own career path, providing benefits to the general public, and yielding credentials to the university’s related educational programs. This process can lead to “embellishment” or misrepresentation of credentials given that many research awards heavily weight technical expertise, demonstrated track record of participants, credentials of the principal investigator (Pl), and commitment to achieve desired results.
In both NIH and FACHEP proposals and research efforts, multi-disciplined teams of Wayne State and external experts were assembled with McElmurry as PI. Certainly universities attempt to internalize much of the research funding but in complicated research such as that posed by the City of Flint water crisis and human impacts from lead and Legionnaires bacteria exposure require external expertise.
For research conducted with public consequences, it is common to have results peer-reviewed. External peer review of the FACHEP reporting by KWR Watercycle Research Institute (” Assessment of the study on Enhanced Disease Surveillance and Environmental Monitoring in Flint, MI” dated October, 2017) identified a number of concerns with FACHEP project management and outcomes and apparently the sponsor of the FACHEP research (State of Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, as directed by the State) cancelled further research with the FACHEP team.
However, McElmurry was purely the PI for this research effort and this was not considered to be “professional employment”. No concerns relative to performance or research conclusions were voiced by the NIH. It was concluded that the licensee did not seek “professional employment” in his course of work.See the response to Question #5 also.
Was the Licensee competent to lead the FACHEP research project?
Competency to lead a multi-million dollar research project involving multiple professional researchers and a complicated, public health issue with schedule-driven pressure requires skills gained through other large research investigations. The Investigation Report contains several third party experts in the water contamination field of study, many of whom participated in research with Dr. McElmurry. This is countered by statements in the Complaint questioning competency and noting concerns expressed by Dr Faust about possible mis-use of her research/dissertation materials.
There is insufficient evidence to conclude on whether the Licensee was competent to lead the FACHEP research project. Given that the research had further connotations related to the decisions made, actions/inactions taken, and job performance of state, county, and city government employees, as well as responses/non-responses to critical FOIA requests and third-party (KWR) concerns, some controversy on research results was inevitable. The criticisms cited in the KWR report do point to poor project leadership, organization, communication but further analysis of the KWR report and analysis of the State of Michigan’s criticism of the FACHEP research is needed before competency or lack thereof can be established. I have personally served as principal investigator (PI) on large research projects and metrics/criteria used to establish whether the PI leadership was successful included: budget and schedule adherence, research alignment with mission statement/goals, quality and validity of the results and interpretation thereof, and satisfaction of third-party peer review/audit. Many of these metrics/criteria could not be located in the documentation furnished via the Investigative Report or through brief records recovery. That client (MDHHS/State) satisfaction was not achieved after consultant (FACHEP) spending over $3.3 million of state funds without credible PI defense and that other FACHEP participants cite very negative performance by McElmurry is definitely concerning as to whether competency existed. In conclusion, there is insufficient evidence to conclude that Dr. McElmurry was incompetent to lead the FACHEP research project.
Was the dissertation work of Dr. Kasey Faust used by the Licensee to secure funding for the NIH and/or FACHEP projects?
The Investigation Report did not contain the FACHEP proposal, but only an undated “FACHEP” planning document apparently written to defined the planned work on a State of Michigan funding opportunity by Wayne State University (three), Kettering University (one), and Henry Ford Health System (one) key researchers. Other participants later cited in the Phase 1 Report included University of Michigan and Colorado State University representatives. There is no mention of Dr. Faust or her research in the FACHEP correspondence provided. However, the e-mail traffic recovered from FOIA probes clearly includes her dialog with Dr. McElmurry leading up to the FACHEP work. This work was predominantly focused on Legionnaires disease associated with Flint water supplies, whereas the NIH research was more broad-based and focused on multiple contaminants (e.g., lead, Legionnaires bacteria, other) and chloride levels in water as well as infrastructure and policy impacts on challenged cities. At face value, Dr. Faust’s data and research were judged by me to be more valuable to the NIH research work.
My detailed observations related to Dr. Faust’s research and the NIH grant proposal were identified in my response to Question #1 above. Based on information available in the Investigative Report, there was intent to demonstrate prior experience with City of Flint water system and infrastructure in the NIH proposal which none of the proposed participants including Dr. McElmurry actually possessed. A loose correlation to previous research and publication led by Faust that McElmurry participated in was used to show relevant experience and enhance the likelihood of securing the grant funding. This misrepresentation was also included in the proposed Rapid Response draft issued by McElmurry to Dr. Edwards. I was not able to locate the research reporting which was funded by the NIH grant, so it is difficult to know whether this misrepresentation cascaded into actual modelling and water contamination transport study of the Flint system because said experience wasn’t possessed by McElmurry. My conclusion is that Faust’s dissertation and body of knowledge were used by McElmurry to assist in securing research funding without proper reference/credit and that Dr. Faust was not a part of ensuing research work.
Did the Licensee violate any standards of practice and/or professional conduct as it relates to the Professional Engineering Occupation?
References B through D were reviewed, alongside information provided with the Investigation Report and that collected through literature search, to assess whether any standards of practice or conduct were violated.
Prohibited conduct of a professional engineer is addressed in Sections 339.601, 606 and 1204 (Articles 6 and 20) of the Occupational Code. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dishonesty) defines “dishonesty” to be “lack of honesty or integrity: disposition to defraud or deceive”. Review of the content of these sections found that none of these conditions cited therein (e.g., fraud, deceit, or dishonesty in practicing professional engineering) were truly the subject of this Complaint nor did the Investigation Report contain evidence of misconduct per the Occupational Code. However, McElmurry’ s overstated involvement in the City of Flint water system definitely bordered on being dishonest.
Standards of practice and professional conduct for professional engineers are contained in Sections R339.16031 to R339.16034 of the Administrative Code, and address solicitation of employment, conflicts of interest, competency required in engineering project participation, and work review/supervision. Each of these standards was reviewed relative to the Complaint filed. Several observations were made:
As noted in my response to other Questions, I could not identify any evidence of qualifications or experience of Dr. McElmurry with respect to City of Flint’s water infrastructure and treatment prior to the NIH grant proposal and his related solicitation of possible research teammates (Edwards). Reference F did not shed any further evidence in to this Complaint’s focus. There was definitely misrepresentation of his credentials observed relative to R339.I6031 although such was not initially viewed by me to be pure “falsification” but rather an embellishment of his own actual knowledge base/experience. The actual wording in the Complaint is that Dr. McElmurry “appropriated ideas that were not his for an NIH research proposal”. Based on the Investigation Report packet, it is difficult to know whether this misrepresentation extended into “appropriation of ideas”. Dr. Masten’s response to questions associated with McEimurry’s conduct on separate FACHEP work clearly point to appropriation of ideas and poor conduct by McElmurry; LARA should carefully look at any supporting evidence offered by Dr. Masten to validate this in her complaint.
McElmurry did align himself with other experts and professional associates in areas in which he was not technically competent for the NIH grant proposal and FACHEP team, thus demonstrating compliance with the third standard of practice (R339.16033) of professional engineers. This standard does not address competency of principal investigators or project managers (individuals who assemble teams) for which part of the Complaint is focused on.
It is unclear how important the misrepresentation of credentials/qualifications/experience cited in Item 1 above was to the actual awards of research funding from NIH and MDHHS. Several documents of interest (“Additional Data Needs”) are cited below, which could better shed some understanding of this point. However, these documents are likely range from difficult to impossible to retrieve at this
Regarding the Complaint’s accusation that Dr. McElmurry’s “lack of competence and expertise, this project (“FACHEP”) has led to a high profile prosecution of State of MI employees … “, I was unable to link how FACHEP research performed directly led to said prosecution. Certainly some of the correspondence attached to the Investigation Report identified the challenges that FACHEP team had with recovery of data including that from interviews with State of Michigan employees, but such does not directly align with what little I have read on ensuing testimony by McElmurry and findings of the State court system. The State did employ a third party (KWR) to review the Ol).tcomes of the FACHEP work and, assuming such was truly an independent and educated viewpoint, KWR’s report does state:”basic conditions for project oversight are lacking, scientific output and quality of work does not match the time and budget spent, lack of trust between client and customer are barriers to responsible research”. These conclusions suggest that there was some mismanagement of the research, which clearly points to the PI’s expertise in leading such However, it is difficult to state that such was due to a “lack of competence” which is at the heart of the matter and intent of the Complaint to identify.
The ongoing State of Michigan prosecution of State employees involved in the “Flint Water Crisis” is a separate criminal proceeding, for which McElmurry is not under
In summary, the only element of the Complaint that was found to be present in the Investigation Report documentation was Dr. McElmurry’s misrepresentation of his prior City of Flint experience to Dr. Edwards and the NIH (and potentially into the MDHHS grant proposal, which has not been provided). As professional engineers, it is critical that we represent ourselves truthfully to any member of the public at all times and particularly when such has consequences such as gaining a publically-funded research award. The severity of this misrepresentation was not initially viewed to be falsification but rather embellishment. Insights raised by Dr. Masten and the pattern of professional misconduct suggest that this embellishment of experience truly was misrepresentation and a violation of the Occupational Code, Section 339.604 Items (c) and (d) on occupational conduct and moral character.The subsequent complaint filed by Dr. Masten on related concerns is viewed to be highly relevant and it is suggested that the two separate complaints be merged together into a common response by the State of Michigan. However, and most important to this review, said misrepresentation was NOT found to be a violation of the current standards of practice and professional conduct/or professional engineers as contained in Sections R339.16031 to R339.16034 of the Administrative Code.
About a year ago we launched this investigative science blog series, to shed light on the felony cases against Dr. Eden Wells and Mr Nick Lyon. At the time wrote about a presumption of guilt and perjury concerns as follows:
Given our own positive experiences with MDHHS since December 2015, we were surprised when professors representing the Flint Area Community Health and Environment Partnership (FACHEP) alleged under oath that the State of Michigan had not cooperated with their Legionella research. Indeed, sworn testimony by FACHEP professors was a basis for felony “obstruction of justice” charges against Wells and Lyons. To date, the media has generally sided with the presumably noble FACHEP professors and against the maligned state employees in all such disputes. Starting with this article, Flintwaterstudy will present an investigative series that calls that narrative into question…”
Let’s imagine ourselves in Dr. Wells’ shoes at 5 am the morning after the Flint library meeting, as she learned about media coverage, social media fallout, and FACHEPs sidebar conversations with residents. Illustrative snippets of each are provided below.
MEDIA COVERAGE.Although McElmurry told Wells no media would be invited, they attended and had a field day. Mlive ran a story with Dr. Love’s proclamation that it was important to flush the filters “at least one minute” to clear away dangerous bacteria and that residents should also be “boiling water or using a UV disinfection lamp” to treat filtered water. Her claims contradicted 11-13 months of unified messaging (FEMA, United Way, National Guard, ATSDR, EPA, GCHD, MDEQ, MDHSS, CDC, City of Flint, and FlintWaterStudy) that it was ok to directly drink POU filtered Flint water.
Photo of Dr. Love at Flint library purchased from Mlive
Mlive also quoted Melissa Mays, who was collaborating with FACHEP on an effort to create a narrative Flint water was getting worse:
“It was nice to hear that things aren’t all better… I can only imagine what would happen if I were to try to drink this through the tap filters. It’s telling me I’m making the right decision by drinking bottled water.”
FACHEP leader McElmurry expressed a self-promotional worldview, that no one else working on the FWC could possibly care for Flint residents, like “Wayne Cares for Flint.”
SOCIAL MEDIA.A selection of some social media quotes poignantly illustrate that Dr. Love’s presentation had a significant impact, including planting the idea that Flint residents were being used in a sort of unethical and uncontrolled human experiment.
How on earth can someone portray the free distribution of POU filters, that are purchased voluntarily by tens of millions of American each year to remove particles, tastes/odors, lead and organic chemicals, as an unprecedented, life-threatening, uncaring human experiment? More importantly, WHY would someone do that? We trace it back to Dr. Love’s deep-seated insecurities and jealousies, and a quest to make her mark as a heroine of the Flint water crisis one way or another.
The die was cast in her initial January 2016 email to Dr. Edwards, where she acknowledged the POU filters were her only professional experience remotely relevant to the FWC. Yet, even on that narrow topic, she had never published a single peer reviewedpaper, or bothered to learn details of the Flint filter deployment. In terms of drinking water expertise, Dr. Love was a zero-trick pony, destined to repeatedly take the microphone on the FWC stage, solemnly making a case about alleged dangers of POU filters, yet earning only politely suppressed jeers from true experts observing the spectacle while rejecting her illogical reasoning.
At the December 14, 2016 press conference, with no true experts in her way, Dr. Love would get her chance to take the microphone unfiltered. We even suspect that the false written statement to Dr. Wells that nothing new would be presented, was deliberate, to make sure no voices of scientific reason would intrude or otherwise bear witness to what FACHEP was doing.
…some unexpected results were emerging from the point-of-use filter study: bacteria were growing in the filters that did not seem to belong there. …. bacteria associated with the mammalian gut (suggestive of some sort of fecal contamination), including species listed by the World Health Organization as being especially dangerous because of their resistance to antibiotics….<Given t>he unforeseen discovery of potentially pathogenic bacteria, it seemed like <residents> were entitled to know about the findings while there was still time to take extra precautions, even though the results were preliminary and analysis ongoing.
Bursting Dr. Pauli’s bubble of fictitious drama, twenty-seven months later, FACHEP has still not published compelling data to support their claims about dangers of POU filtered water. In mid-2017, FACHEP admitted they still had no evidence of harmful bacteria or filter associated disease. As for the “unforeseen discovery of potentially pathogenic bacteria” and antibiotic resistance DNA, that was foreseeable by anyone who bothered to read a few papers about application of molecular methods to drinking water samples anywhere in the world. None of this should have been construed as unique to Flint POU filters.
Yet the most ridiculous parts of Dr. Love’s “story,” were implied black magical properties of POU filters installed only in Flint. First, there was a claim that in Flint, somehow the POU filters were recreating a warm, nutrient-rich ecosystem of a “mammalian gut,” thereby growing human fecal pathogens that would cause “Shigella-like disease” with “especially dangerous” antibiotic resistance. Or as Dr. Pauli wrote ominously, that “Filter use in Flint was not…comparable to filter use elsewhere” and the situation was “abnormal.”
Second, was the illusion that mounting a POU filter to the end of a kitchen faucet in Flint, negated all upstream treatments and created a “single barrier” to dangerous bacteria (see slide). Love’s Flint library slide literally implies, that the filter installation, caused Detroit’s water treatment plants serving Flint to magically vanish (see page 3 of this link for descriptions of multibarrier bacteria treatments in Detroit). This was irresponsible.
Given all of the above, why was Dr. Love so focused on POU filter dangers in Flint? Imagine what would have happened, if Dr. Love had held a press conference, articulating her fears that filtered Ann Arbor drinking water was so dangerous, her family had actually started boiling it before consumption. Or held a press conference, announcing that all 4 million consumers of Detroit water with POU filters (probably at least a million people), should also boil or UV treat their water, and not just the 0.1 million consumers receiving the same Detroit water (but with enhanced disinfection) in Flint. Of course, such assertions would have exposed Dr. Love as an alarmist crackpot. It was only in Flint, where FACHEP had carefully prepared the ground with 4 months of rumormongering, that such unbalanced claims could be taken seriously.
“I don’t feel like I answered questions well, and didn’t say some of the things that were important to say…In the future, I will benefit from having a practice run on the presentation. I don’t get nervous, but I get laser focused on a few things at the expense of everything else. There are times when my laser focus is beneficial, but this was not one of them. Truly, I’ve been known to forget my name because I was so laser focused. Spending 2.5 hours with a red knuckle grip on the steering wheel coming up just primed my “laser focus” pump.”
McElmurry reassured Dr. Love that she “did great…. <and> it went about as good as could be expected.” He then proudly forwarded the WNEM story reporting how FACHEP was successful in destroying resident trust and creating needless fear about bacteria on the filters. The meeting was a grand success from the perspective of FACHEP’s leader and according to Dr. Pauli’s book.
1. No new information was presented. Indeed, I held off on new information….
2. I remain perplexed how the information about the increase in bacteria across the filters is a surprise. Not only have we discussed this with them before, especially during the “you are going to release shigella data” kerfuffle, but did they not read ANY literature about filters before they decided to deploy 24,000 of them in Flint? Literature, papers, NSF Standards? Anything? This should not be a surprise and was the public health community’s responsibility when they decided to deploy an intervention that they do not understand.
3. I think I was balanced and measured and clear. Counts go up (not unusual for these filters) and we are looking at who those bacteria are. Again, this is absolutely not new. The only thing that is new is that the general public, not just those who we sampled, are now aware of what the state should have told citizens was a risk from the beginning.
This email reveals Dr. Love in full Dunning-Kruger glory. Based on 0 years of experience in drinking water public health crises, she constructs an alternate reality in which she is blameless, and all the relief agencies are incompetent and unethical. How dare the agencies not acknowledge Dr. Love as a great moral exemplar, engineering ethics philosopher, waterborne disease expert, and gifted risk communicator.
Well, did FACHEP control the image of the multibarrier water treatment plant, disappearing after attaching a POU filter to a kitchen faucet? Did FACHEP control the message sent about the “cheap bastards” at the State of MI sponsoring their research? What about Dr. Sullivan’s “deluge of darkness that makes us afraid,” or FACHEP implying that filter use in Flint was unlike anything heretofore experienced in America? And if Dr. Wells did not like it, well, then what—still more pointless pleading to FACHEP’s higher motives?
WHAT
ON EARTH IS WRONG WITH FACHEP LEADERSHIP?
Still struggling for an explanation
regarding FACHEP’s reckless unscientific behavior, even after all the mistakes exposed
in Parts 1-8, we
found information online consistent with an emerging pattern of behavior that gave rise to
the FACHEP-instigated Wells and Lyon felony cases:
While
we are not psychologists and cannot render a diagnosis, we nonetheless consider
the above helpful, in providing a plausible hypothesis for behavior of this quintessential
team of academic crybullies.
And to think that all of the above was accomplished from just 24 hours of Dr. Love unfiltered. After her first public taste of FACHEP glory, Love and McElmurry laid plans for an extraordinarily productive month. Over the holidays, when most of the world was taking a break, FACHEP would be working overtime to “double and triple down” on the Flint POU filter manifesto and inventing an epic story of victimhood.
