Former Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder and other top officials in his administration have been informed they are being charged following an investigation into the Flint water crisis, according to press reports.
The Associated Press, citing two people with knowledge, reported Tuesday that Snyder, his former top health official Nick Lyon, and others in his administration were told by the Michigan attorney general’s office to expect to appear in court soon. It’s not clear the nature of the charges.
Snyder, a Republican, was serving as governor when state water managers in 2014 switched the water supply for Flint without properly treating it. The city’s residents, the majority of whom are black, were then exposed to high levels of lead contamination in their drinking water.
Lead is a heavy metal that had been used for decades in pipes and paint. The substance is known to cause learning disabilities, slower growth, and other health problems, particularly in children. If water isn’t treated properly and lead service pipes corrode, the metal can get into drinking water supplies.
Flint pediatrician Mona Hanna-Attisha found in 2015 that elevated levels of lead in children’s blood had nearly doubled in the city since 2014. The water contamination was also linked to an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease, which is a severe form of pneumonia, around that time that killed 12 people.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat, shook up the office’s investigation on the Flint crisis in June 2019, when prosecutors dismissed involuntary manslaughter charges against Lyon and restarted the investigation. Lyon has admitted to knowing about cases of Legionnaires’ spreading in the city months before he and Snyder publicly disclosed the outbreak.
The Environmental Protection Agency under the Trump administration recently updated decadesold federal standards targeting lead contamination in drinking water. EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler was joined by current Flint Mayor Sheldon Neeley, a Democrat, in the announcement in December.
“We do understand that this announcement is about progress, not perfection,” Neeley said then. “We do know that we have to understand that there’s more work to be done, and we are stepping up to the challenge to do that work that’s necessary to protect our greatest asset,” which he said is children.
Wheeler said the updated rules would lead to more replacements of lead pipes and would require, for the first time, that water systems test for lead in the water of schools and child care facilities.
Environmentalists and former EPA officials, however, have said the updates aren’t strict enough to prevent another Flint. They criticized the EPA for allowing more time, 30 years, for water utilities to replace all of their lead service lines.
