Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette chargedBusch, 40, with three counts of felony and two misdemeanors, Prysby, 53, faces fourfelony charges and two misdemeanor charges, and Glasgow, 40, one felony and onemisdemeanor.
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Prysby faces six criminal counts: two charges of misconduct in office; and one count each of conspiracy to tamper with evidence, tampering with evidence, engaging in a treatment violation that violates the Michigan Safe Drinking Water Act and engaging in monitoring violation that violates the Michigan Safe Drinking Water Act.
“We allege and we will prove that Mr. Busch and Mr. Prsyby altered test results which endangered the health of citizens and families of Flint”, Schuette said.
Snyder said that “we’ve got a lot of wonderful people working for the State of MI”, and “let’s not let the possible situation of a handful affect all 47,000”.
Then elevated levels of lead were discovered in the water.
A key juncture in the Flint crisis came early in 2015, when federal Environmental Protection Agency officials attempted to discern if Flint was using proper controls.
The charges include more than a dozen separate counts against two officials at the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, as well as a Flint water quality supervisor.
Residents in the area are primarily low-income and African American, and despite the fact that the decision to route water from the river was reversed, people have gotten sick.
“While these initial charges are a start in ensuring the residents of Flint see that justice is served, those who are truly responsible have yet to be held accountable”, said Agenda Project Action Fund President Erik Altieri, “We will not stop fighting until Governor Snyder is removed from office”.
Many in Flint are saying that the matter won’t be complete until Snyder is charged.
More charges are ahead, he says.
According to charging documents, they manipulated results by directing those providing samples to pre-flush their taps, which would reduce the level of lead. A federal state of emergency has been declared in Flint related to the city’s water becoming contaminated. Prysby and Busch could not be immediately reached to respond to the allegation, but an email sent April 17, 2014 – eight days before Flint switched its water source – seems to indicate that Glasgow had problems with the monitoring schedule and his staffing ahead of the switch.
It said Snyder and his administration failed to act even after “suggestions to do so by senior staff members in the Governor’s office”. That lack of treatment caused lead to leach from pipes as water flowed into homes and businesses. EPA officials have said they were misled by the DEQ about the situation, and both Busch and Prysby were at the heart of that exchange.
The two DEQ employees have been suspended without pay.
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Officials also are investigating possible links between the tainted water and a dozen deaths from Legionnaires’ disease.
