Michigan Republican Gov. Rick Snyder said Thursday he is not worried about facing criminal charges for the water crisis in the struggling factory city of Flint, where city managers he appointed made changes to the drinking water supply that sent lead into the pipes and contaminated the water.
The appointees are facing criminal charges leveled by Republican Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette this week, with many speculating that Snyder could be next in line to be charged.
“I have no reason to be concerned,” Snyder said in an interview with the Detroit Free Press Thursday.
The charges against Snyder’s appointees, Darnell Earley and Jerry Ambrose, were filed by Schuette Tuesday.
Earley and Ambrose are being held directly responsible for the decision to connect Flint’s drinking water supply to the nearby, but contaminated, Flint River. The industrial solvents in the water leached lead from the city’s water pipes, sending dangerously high levels of the toxic metal into the city’s homes.
Schuette criticized the decision as a cost-cutting measure that put the lives of an entire community at risk.
Snyder said Thursday that “people have different perspectives and different views” on what happened in Flint. He added that he does not “necessarily agree” that the emergency managers who Schuette is targeting were fixated on the city’s budget at the expense of people’s safety and public health.
