After months of investigation, more state employees have been charged with crimes related to Flint's water crisis. The Detroit Free Press reports that the six charged employees include "Michigan Department of Health and Human Services workers Nancy Peeler, Corinne Miller and Robert Scott, and Michigan Department of Environmental Quality employees Leanne Smith; Adam Rosenthal and Patrick Cook."
According to the Detroit News, the six employees are charged with "misconduct in office, conspiring to commit misconduct in office, and willful neglect of duty." They are accused of, among other things, hiding test results that showed toxic levels of lead in the residents' bloodstreams.
The charges, bought by Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette, follow felony charges filed in April against another three public employees -- two with the Department of Environmental Quality and one with the City of Flint. From the Free Press:
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.
[Schuette] 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.
Flint's water supply was contaminated with harmful levels of lead since the city transitioned from "treated water supplied from Detroit to raw water from the Flint River, which was treated at the Flint Water Treatment Plant" in April 2014. Officials in the Department of Environmental Quality "have acknowledged a mistake in failing to require corrosion control chemicals to be added to the water."