Schuette on Wednesday sought felony and misdemeanor charges against Flint employee Mike Glasgow and the DEQ’s Mike Prysby and Stephen Busch and said “there will be more to come”.
Advertisement
Busch is charged with misconduct in office, tampering with evidence and conspiracy to tamper with evidence (felonies); two violations of the Safe Drinking Water Act (misdemeanors), one involving treatment, the other involving monitoring.
Flint utilities administrator Michael Glasgow also was charged Wednesday with tampering with evidence for changing lead water-testing results and willful neglect of duty as a public servant.
If convicted, Glasgow faces up to five years in prison and $6,000 in fines, while Busch faces up to 15 years and $35,000 in fines, and Prysby faces up to 20 years and $45,000 in fines, according to court documents.
However, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette is heading the investigation and he says more charges will be coming.
Just as a task force commissioned by Snyder laid the blame for Flint on the MDEQ and the EPA (with no mention of the governor’s role), these charges are also confined to MDEQ and city employees, so far, and many are angry.
Advocates echoed Kildee’s sentiment, and say Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder needs to be removed from office as a result of the water scandal that is also associated with an outbreak of Legionnaire’s disease in the town. which killed at least 10 people.
Hanna-Attisha reported high lead levels in children’s blood after state agencies initially dismissed her concerns.
“There will have to be some kind of message to get everybody to do it because I think it has to be a coordinated effort in order for it to work”, she says.
DETROIT (AP) Flint’s water crisis has taken a dramatic turn with criminal charges being filed against two state employees and a city worker.
Flint residents and city officials, no doubt, were pleased with what appears to be the first serious step towards determining accountability for a beleaguered city that has gone without potable drinking water for over a year.
The Flint water crisis began in April 2014 when the city switched its water source from Detroit to the Flint River.
It is alleged that defendant did willfully neglect to perform a duty enjoined upon him by the Michigan Safe Drinking Water Act, to wit: by failing to perform the duties of an F-1 Certified Operator employed by the Flint Water Treatment Plant; contrary to MCL 750.478. State reports said they did, but Glasgow – then-assistant supervisor of the Flint water plant – said that’s not the case.
Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, who is credited with first bringing the nations attention on the deadly level of lead in Flints water, was raised in Royal Oak and now lives in West Bloomfield. “They failed”, said Schuette.
“We want anybody and everybody that had a hand in this that caused harm to the citizens of this community to be held accountable”, Weaver said.
Schuette accused the two state regulators of “intentionally tampering with evidence of lead levels on certain water samples in homes of residents of Flint”.
What happened in Flint is complicated, a series of disastrous decisions made and OK’d by numerous government officials, set against the backdrop of decades of urban disinvestment and regional racism. But he said residents can’t pursue a remedy for civil rights violations in the matter, due to federal law and rulings by higher courts.
“So many things went so terribly wrong in Flint”.
MID-MARCH: Snyder, the state-appointed emergency manager who oversaw Flint when the water source was switched to the river and other state officials testify in front of Congress. City infrastructure was damaged and the municipal water supply still remains unsafe to drink.
Edwards said the state environmental quality department and the city of Flint collected 71 lead level samples from homes when they were required to collect 100.
“They failed MI families; indeed, they failed us all”, Schuette said. “There will be more to come”.
Advertisement
Corrosion control wasn’t incorporated into the Flint River water tapped by the city for 18 months.
