The Star's Saturday editorial

The facts are in: Despite a summer of denials, Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon’s office knew almost immediately about dangerously high bacteria levels in late May in the Lake of the Ozarks.

Top Nixon aides, however, didn’t move to make that information public quickly enough.

They then tried to lessen the impact of the information by only informing Lake-area media and others “on request.” And, finally, Nixon’s office denied knowledge when the story of the cover-up became public in mid-July.

This entire affair has looked polluted from day one: State officials appear to have put aside public safety in order not to scare away tourist dollars. The lake had high E. coli levels, commonly a cause in food poisoning and potentially lethal.

When news broke that the state had known about the contamination and not made the news public, Nixon’s office criticized the Department of Natural Resources for a lack of transparency.

On Thursday, GOP state Sen. Brad Lager told The Star, “It has become clearly apparent…that someone in the governor’s office was briefed within 24 hours. That is a much different story from what we have been hearing.”

Apparently aware it was about to be whacked with the new revelations, Nixon’s office this week threw together a plan and a news conference. Standing on the lake shore at Osage Beach, Nixon basically voted to insist that the Department of Natural Resource enforce existing laws, with existing staff, at the Lake of the Ozarks.

“This lake will be cleaner when I am done than it was when I started,” the governor said.

We hope the same will be said about the operations of his office. Even now, it continues to stonewall. Spokesman Jack Cardetti insisted this week that while the office knew about the problems earlier in the summer — even though it said otherwise — aides didn’t know the full extent and had pushed for release of the initial report.

Nixon’s office, though amply schooled in politics, has failed to pay attention to a modern political reality: The cover-up is usually worse than the original event.

News of the contamination readings would have passed quickly. It’s questionable whether they would have unduly concerned the lake’s many boaters. But the delays, denials and obfuscations have diminished the credibility of Nixon’s office. The governor’s every step is now, rightly, being studied for signs of untoward motives.

Where to go from here?

The plan to enforce regulations to clean up the Lake of the Ozarks should go forward. In fact, stricter enforcement against polluters should extend to all of Missouri’s waterways. It shouldn’t have taken a scandal to prompt the state to do its job.

As for Nixon, he needs to apologize to Missouri’s citizens and visitors, simply and without caveat and promise never to abuse the public’s trust and put people’s safety in jeopardy again.

The state’s attempt to protect tourism from the bad news of a high E. coli reading was a bad decision. Nixon’s refusal to take responsibility early on was even worse.

The original contamination in Missouri’s largest lake simply washed away on its own. But the stain on the governor’s office won’t disappear so easily.