Water We Waiting For, Con't

After nearly a year, it looks like somebody's finally going to be held responsible for the Flint water crisis in Michigan, just not anybody from GOP Gov. Rick Snyder's administration.

Six state employees were criminally charged this morning in district court in connection with the Flint water crisis. 

Charged are Michigan Department of Health and Human Services workers Nancy Peeler, Corinne Miller and Robert Scott, and Michigan Department of Environmental Quality employees Liane Shekter-Smith; Adam Rosenthal and Patrick Cook, according to testimony this morning in Flint’s district court. 

Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette and Todd Flood, the Royal Oak attorney heading the AG's investigation, have called an 11:30 a.m. news conference at U-M Flint to further discuss today's criminal charges. 

In April, Schuette announced felony charges against two Michigan Department of Environmental Quality officials and one City of Flint official. At that time, he promised more criminal charges would be forthcoming.

The city employee, Mike Glasgow, pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor and is cooperating with the investigation as other charges were dropped. The two DEQ employees, Stephen Busch and Mike Prysby, are awaiting preliminary examinations. 

He later brought a civil lawsuit against engineering and consulting firms who had consulted on the Flint Water Treatment Plant. 

The civil lawsuit, filed in Flint in Genesee County Circuit Court, accuses engineering firm Lockwood, Andrews & Newnam and environmental consultant Veolia North America, plus related companies, of causing "the Flint Water Crisis to occur, continue and worsen." Both companies have denied any wrongdoing and vowed to fight the lawsuit.

What I'm seeing here is all the blame being put on testing and quality workers and not anyone actually responsible for the decisions that led to the problem in the first place.  However I'm hopeful that some sort of plea deal can be reached where these six workers turn states' evidence on the Snyder administration.

We can hope, at least.  Meanwhile, as Chris Savage at Eclectablog reminds us, Gov. Snyder continues to do nothing in order to try to fix Flint's water supply, and won't until Republicans are thrown out of power in Michigan.