Tag Archives: Michigan

Former Flint officials criminally charged in water crisis

The Flint Water Plant tower is seen in Flint, Michigan, U.S.

By Steve Friess

FLINT, Mich. (Reuters) – Michigan prosecutors on Tuesday charged four former government officials with criminal conspiracy to violate safety rules in connection with the Flint water crisis, which exposed residents to dangerous levels of lead, the state’s attorney general said.

Former state-appointed emergency managers Darnell Earley and Gerald Ambrose and former city employees Howard Croft, a public works superintendent, and Daugherty Johnson, a utilities manager, were the latest to be charged in the case, Attorney General Bill Schuette said.

He told a news conference in Flint that the defendants conspired to operate the city’s water treatment plant when it was not safe to do so.

“The tragedy that we know of as the Flint water crisis did not occur by accident,” Schuette said. “Flint was a casualty of arrogance, disdain and failure of management, an absence of accountability.”

Asked whether the investigation would lead to charges against higher-placed state officials, Schuette reiterated that no one was off the table.

Some critics have called for high-ranking state officials, including Michigan Governor Rick Snyder, to be charged. Snyder has said he believed he had not done anything criminally wrong.

Court documents did not list attorneys for the four men. An attorney who had previously represented Earley could not immediately be reached for comment.

Michigan has been at the center of a public health crisis since last year, when tests found high amounts of lead in blood samples taken from children in Flint, a predominantly black city of about 100,000.

Flint’s water contamination was linked to an April 2014 decision by a state-appointed emergency manager to switch the city’s water source to the Flint River from Lake Huron in an attempt to cut costs.

The more corrosive river water caused lead to leach from city pipes into the drinking water. The city switched back to the previous water system in October 2015.

The initial change in the city’s water source was made while Earley, 65, was emergency manager.

At hearings in Washington last March on the crisis, lawmakers criticized Earley for failing to ask enough questions about the safety protocols in place at the time of the switch. In his testimony, Earley blamed city and federal officials for the problems, and said the decision to switch was made before his tenure.

“A broad net is certainly being cast,” said Virginia Tech professor Marc Edwards, a water engineer who first raised the issue of Flint’s lead contamination.

Lead can be toxic, and children are especially vulnerable. The crisis has prompted lawsuits by parents who say their children have shown dangerously high levels of lead in their blood.

(Additional reporting by Laila Kearney in New York and Timothy McLaughlin in Chicago.; Editing by Dan Grebler)

Weekend weather, freezing, dangerous Conditions in Ohio cause deadly pileups

weather map from Noaa weather service 12-9-16

By Kami K

Cold weather is in store for almost the entire nation this weekend as frigid temperatures dive in from Canada. Highs will be reaching in the low 40’s for Texas and frigid low temps of -22 degrees in the Dakotas.  According to the National Weather Service, a system moving into the Pacific Northwest will spread heavy rain and snow over the region today.  Snow levels will start off very low with snow accumulations likely even in Portland and Seattle with the probability of at least 4” of snow through Saturday evening.   

Twelve to fourteen inches of accumulation will be seen in some areas in the north from lake effect snowfall along areas close to the Great Lakes. These lake effect snows have caused dangerous conditions on roads and highways. In a report from The Weather Channel, heavy lake-effect snowfall made travel dangerous along Interstate 90 near the Ohio-Pennsylvania border Thursday, causing a pair of pileups 50 miles apart that left more than a dozen injured.

Shortly before 3 p.m. EST, the Lake County, Ohio Sheriff’s Office said that a pileup involving more than 50 vehicles occurred along I-90 southeast of Painesville. As a result, authorities closed both directions of the interstate. The road was closed for more than 14 hours and about 20 people were injured, according to the Associated Press.

Another pile-up occurred earlier Thursday along the same interstate, but this one was on the other side of the Ohio-Pennsylvania border. The Weather Channel reported that at least 15 people were injured in a pileup that involved at least a dozen vehicles between Exits 9 and 16 near Girard Township, Pennsylvania.

A more deadly chain reaction crash in Michigan resulted in the deaths of 3 people when slick road conditions caused a 30 to 40 car pileup on Interstate 96 Thursday morning.

“Bands of lake-effect snow are streaming through the Great Lakes region as arctic air flows over the relatively warmer lake waters,” said weather.com meteorologist Chris Dolce. “Those snow squalls can lead to visibility that deteriorates quickly, along with slick roads.”

Police and weather specialists are cautioning all drivers about respecting the weather conditions and being cautious.  

Michigan State Police Lt. Mike Shaw told CBS Detroit, “We’re just trying to tell people I know it’s the first snowstorm, I know it’s the first time we’ve seen snow in a long time, but you gotta slow down and you gotta take a look at those closing distances between the cars in front of you.”

Judge orders bottled water delivered in Flint, Mich., in water crisis

Flint Water Tower

(This version of the Nov. 10 story, corrects the name to Natural Resources Defense Council in paragraph 3)

By David Bailey

(Reuters) – A federal judge on Thursday ordered state and city officials to deliver bottled water directly to qualified residents in Flint, Michigan, where a water contamination crisis has made unfiltered tap water unsafe to drink since April 2014.

Officials must deliver four cases of bottled water a week immediately unless they can prove a water filter is installed and properly maintained at a home or if residents opt out of a filter or deliveries, U.S. District Judge David Lawson said.

The ruling came in a lawsuit filed by residents and advocacy groups Concerned Pastors for Social Action, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan.

“Here the plaintiffs seek a stop-gap measure that provides ready access to safe drinking water,” Lawson said. “It is in the best interest of everyone to move people out of harms way before addressing the source of the harm.”

Flint, a predominantly black city of 100,000, was under the control of a state-appointed emergency manager when it switched its water source in April 2014 to the Flint River from Lake Huron in a money-saving move. The more corrosive river water caused lead to leach from city pipes and into the drinking water.

The city switched back in October 2015 after tests found high levels of lead in blood samples taken from children, but the water has not returned fully to normal. Flint has been replacing lead pipes running to homes, and state officials have said the water is safe to drink if properly filtered.

The crisis drew international attention and numerous lawsuits and led to calls by some critics for Michigan Governor Rick Snyder to resign over the state’s response.

The groups’ lawsuit, filed in January, seeks replacement of lead service pipes. They later asked Lawson to order home water deliveries or faucet filter installations because transportation issues made it hard for some residents to get to water distribution centers.

The city and state argued that bottled water was widely available at government-run distribution points and ordering door-to-door deliveries could be financially crippling.

Lawson called the city and state efforts commendable, but said the plaintiffs offered credible anecdotal evidence the distribution network was in flux and not completely effective.

“The court correctly recognized that the government created this crisis, and it’s the government’s responsibility to ensure that all people in Flint have access to safe drinking water,” NRDC attorney Dimple Chaudhary said.

(Reporting by David Bailey in Minneapolis; Editing by Leslie Adler)

U.S. counterterrorism agents arrest Michigan man with explosives

By Laila Kearney

(Reuters) – Federal counter terrorism agents have arrested a 29-year-old Michigan man accused of illegally purchasing an arsenal of explosives and other devices capable of mass casualties, according to a criminal complaint filed this week.

Sebastian Gregerson, a Detroit resident who also goes by the name Abdurrahman Bin Mikaayl, was arrested on Monday by officials with the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s counter terrorism squad, according to the complaint.

Gregerson is accused of unregistered possession of a destructive device and the unlicensed receipt of explosive materials, the complaint said.

His court-appointed attorney could not immediately be reached for comment.

The FBI began its investigation in April 2015, when an anonymous informant alerted the agency that Gregerson said he was in possession of grenades and bazookas, the complaint said.

Over the past 16 months, Gregerson bought weapons, ammunition and tactical gear including a car pistol holster, hundreds of rounds of ammunition for an AK-47 rifle and commercial-grade road spikes to disable vehicles, the complaint said.

He also bought several training manuals and subscriptions to publications about how to evade capture and “survive dangerous situations,” it said.

In recorded phone conversations with an undercover FBI agent, Gregerson discussed making homemade grenades and ways to attack buildings and law enforcement by using the explosive devices, the complaint said.

It was not clear from the complaint whether Gregerson said he planned to carry out such an attack.

Gregerson was arrested on Sunday, when he met with undercover agents at a gas station and traded a Beretta M9 handgun as payment for several grenades, the complaint said. He was not licensed to receive explosive materials, it said.

Gregerson is scheduled for a detention hearing on Thursday at the Theodore Levin U.S. Courthouse in Detroit, court documents said.

(Reporting by Laila Kearney; Editing by David Gregorio)

Flint children’s blood lead levels rose in water crisis: U.S. officials

Water fountain in a school near Flint, Michigan

DETROIT (Reuters) – Federal health officials on Friday confirmed that the blood lead levels of children in Flint, Michigan, rose after the city switched to the Flint River as the source of its drinking water, exposing residents to dangerously high contamination.

Flint, with a population of about 100,000, was under control of a state-appointed emergency manager in 2014 when it switched its water source to the river from Detroit’s municipal system to save money. The city switched back in October.

The river water was more corrosive than the Detroit system’s and caused more lead to leach from aging pipes.

Lead can be toxic, and children are especially vulnerable. The crisis has prompted lawsuits by parents who say their children have shown dangerously high levels of lead in their blood.

U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials said on Friday that they found that the percentage of young children with elevated blood lead levels was significantly higher when the water source was the Flint River.

“This crisis was entirely preventable, and a startling reminder of the critical need to eliminate all sources of lead from our children’s environment,” Patrick Breysse, director of the agency’s National Center for Environmental Health, said in a statement.

When the water source was switched back to the Detroit system, the agency said, the percentage of children under 6 years old with elevated blood lead returned to levels seen before the switch.

The agency urged residents to use filters on their faucets to get water for drinking, cooking and brushing teeth. It said regular tap water could be used for bathing and showering because lead is not absorbed into the skin, but young children should not be allowed to drink bath water.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said on Thursday that properly filtered water in Flint was safe to drink. City officials, however, said bottled water was still needed since not every home can use the filters.

(Reporting by Ben Klayman; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)

EPA says filtered Flint, Michigan drinking water safe to drink

Flint Michigan Water Tower

DETROIT (Reuters) – Federal officials said on Thursday it is safe for anyone to drink properly filtered water in Flint, Michigan, where a public health crisis erupted after residents were exposed to dangerously high levels of lead.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said in a statement that the most recent testing at nearly 50 locations in the city showed lead levels far below the levels considered dangerous.

But the city’s mayor said some homes in Flint cannot be fitted with filters, so bottled water is still needed.

Flint, with a population of about 100,000, was under control of a state-appointed emergency manager in 2014 when it switched its water source from Detroit’s municipal system to the Flint River to save money. The city switched back in October.

The river water was more corrosive than the Detroit system’s and caused more lead to leach from aging pipes. Lead can be toxic, and children are especially vulnerable. The crisis has prompted lawsuits by parents who say their children have shown dangerously high levels of lead in their blood.

The EPA, which worked in coordination with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in the testing, said properly filtered water is safe even for pregnant and nursing women, and children, groups more susceptible to the effects of lead poisoning.

“Residents can be confident that they can use filtered water and protect their developing fetus or young child from lead,” U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary Dr. Nicole Lurie said in a statement. Lurie has led federal support efforts for the Flint crisis.

The EPA said the filters distributed by the state of Michigan effectively remove lead or reduce it to levels well below the level of 15 parts per billion at which federal officials say action is needed. In the testing, nearly all filtered water tested below 1 part per billion. In January, water samples tested above 150 parts per billion.

The state began offering free water filters in Flint in January.

“This good news shows the progress we are making with overall water quality improving in Flint,” Michigan Governor Rick Snyder said in a statement.

Snyder has been criticized for the state’s poor handling of the crisis.

Flint Mayor Karen Weaver noted that some homes have faucets where the filters do not fit. “This is not the ultimate solution,” she said in a statement. “We still need new infrastructure, replacing the lead-tainted pipes in the city remains my top priority.”

(Reporting by Ben Klayman in Detroit; Editing by David Gregorio)

Three Michigan officials charged in Flint Toxic Water crisis

A woman with a "Flint Lives Matter" shirt walks toward a hearing room where Michigan Governor Rick Snyder and EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy will testify on Capitol Hill in

By Serena Maria Daniels

FLINT, Mich. (Reuters) – Three Michigan state and local officials were criminally charged on Wednesday in an investigation into dangerous lead levels in the city of Flint’s drinking water, and the state attorney general said there would be more charges to come.

Genesee District Judge Tracy Collier-Nix authorized charges against Flint employee Michael Glasgow and Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) employees Stephen Busch and Michael Prysby.

Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette told a news conference to announce the charges that it was “only the beginning and there will be more to come.” He said the defendants were cooperating with investigators.

The three could not be reached for comment.

Schuette added nothing was off the table when asked if Michigan Governor Rick Snyder could face charges. Snyder has been criticized for the administration’s handling of the crisis, and he has apologized but said he would not resign.

The Republican governor told a news conference in the capital, Lansing, later on Wednesday that he did not believe he had done anything criminally wrong in relation to the water crisis. He said his office has been cooperating with the state probe but that he himself had not been questioned.

“I’m not looking for vindication. This is about getting to the truth,” said Snyder, who called the charges “deeply troubling” and emphasized the state would pursue wrongdoing and hold people accountable.

Flint, which has about 100,000 people, was under control of a state-appointed emergency manager in 2014 when it switched its source of water from Detroit’s municipal system to the Flint River to save money. The city switched back in October.

The river water was more corrosive than the Detroit system’s and caused more lead to leach from its aging pipes. Lead can be toxic and children are especially vulnerable. The crisis has prompted lawsuits by parents who say their children are showing dangerously high blood levels of lead.

Glasgow, 40, was charged with tampering with evidence by falsifying reports to state environmental officials, and willful neglect of duty, Schuette said.

Busch, 40, and Prysby, 53, were charged with five and six counts, respectively, including misconduct in office, tampering with evidence and violation of the Michigan Safe Drinking Water Act, Schuette said. The attorney general said the two men misled authorities and altered results in the testing of lead levels in the water in Flint homes.

“They had a duty to protect the health of families and citizens of Flint,” Schuette said. “They failed.”

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.

Glasgow on Wednesday was placed on unpaid leave, city of Flint spokeswoman Kristin Moore said. The MDEQ officials charged were also suspended without pay as of Wednesday, Melanie Brown, a spokeswoman for the agency, said in an email.

Dena Altheide, a court administrator, said court dates and arraignments had not been set.

FIRST STEP

Flint Mayor Karen Weaver said holding people responsible was a good first step but that the city still needed the resources to fix the issue, including swapping out all the old lead pipes.

Wayne State University law professor Peter Henning, a former federal prosecutor, said what happened in Flint was wrong, but whether it was criminal was a very different question.

“You have to now prove exactly what they did that violated the law. That’s just not easy,” Henning said.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Detroit and the FBI are independently investigating the crisis, looking for any violations of federal law, said Gina Balaya, a spokeswoman with the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

In January, Michigan’s Schuette named a special prosecutor to lead the investigation into whether criminal charges should be filed.

“The criminal charges against MDEQ officials are one step towards justice for the families of Flint who were poisoned as a result of the actions of Governor Snyder’s administration,” U.S. Representative Elijah Cummings, a Democrat from Maryland, said in a statement.

Cummings and other House Democrats have called for Snyder to step down.

Also on Wednesday, Democrats in the U.S. Senate introduced a legislative package to invest more than $70 billion over the next 10 years through loans, grants and tax credits in the country’s crumbling water infrastructure and lead relief programs.

(Reporting and writing by Ben Klayman; Additional reporting by Suzannah Gonzales in Chicago, Susan Cornwell and Susan Heavey in Washington, and David Bailey in Minneapolis; Editing by Diane Craft and Peter Cooney)

Illinois says five more people with bacterial infection have died

CHICAGO (Reuters) – The Illinois Department of Public Health said on Wednesday that five more people had died after being infected with Elizabethkingia, a disease linked to the deaths of 15 people in neighboring Wisconsin.

The cause of death was not identified as Elizabethkingia because many of those people had underlying health conditions, the department said. Ten Illinois residents have been diagnosed with Elizabethkingia, and six have died.

Symptoms of Elizabethkingia can include fever, shortness of breath and chills or cellulitis, but officials have said that the bacteria are rarely reported to cause illness in humans.

Officials said the Illinois strain of Elizabethkingia differed from the Wisconsin one. The department has asked hospitals to report all cases of Elizabethkingia and save any specimens for possible laboratory testing.

The patients who died in Wisconsin had serious underlying conditions, health officials have said, and it remains unclear whether the bacteria caused all the fatalities.

Wisconsin, Michigan and Illinois investigators are working with the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to determine the source of the bacteria.

(Reporting by Mark Weinraub; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)

Michigan Proposes strictest lead testing in country

The top of a water tower is seen at the Flint Water Plant in Flint, Michigan

DETROIT (Reuters) – Michigan officials and water experts on Friday proposed the state adopt what would be the nation’s strictest lead-testing rules in response to a water crisis in city of Flint that has fueled widespread public outrage.

A committee put in place by the state to respond to the Flint crisis recommended a lowering of the level of lead in water at which action is required by public water systems.

Any implementation would be through a combination of statutory, rule and other changes, said Ari Adler, a spokesman for Governor Rick Snyder. The potential costs, financing and timeline are still to be determined, he said.

Federal rules require action if lead levels top 15 parts per billion, but Michigan would reduce its threshold by 2020 to 10 parts per billion to align with World Health Organization standards, officials at the meeting held in Flint said.

The federal Lead and Copper Rule can only be altered nationally via federal action, according to a statement from the governor’s office. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency told Congress on Wednesday that the agency would not have reforms ready until early 2017.

“The federal Lead and Copper Rule needs to be improved immediately,” the governor said in a statement. “It’s dumb and dangerous and in Michigan we aren’t going to wait for the federal government to fix it anymore.”

The committee also recommended that every public water system replace all lead service lines within 10 years.

Flint was under the control of a state-appointed emergency manager when it switched the source of its tap water from Detroit’s system to the Flint River in April 2014 to save money.

The city switched back last October after tests found high levels of lead in children’s blood samples. The water from the river was corrosive and leached more lead from the city pipes than Detroit water did. Lead is a toxic agent that can damage the human nervous system.

On Wednesday, Michigan lawmakers extended the state of emergency in Flint for four months, enabling the city to tap more state funds and coordinate a response with other authorities.

Other recommendations by the Flint panel on Friday included annual lead testing for all schools, day care centers and other public facilities; disclosure of lead service-line status in all home sales and rental contracts; creation of water advisory councils for public systems to give residents a stronger voice; and better public notification when lead problems arise.

(Reporting by Ben Klayman; Editing by Alden Bentley)

Dead Illinois resident had bacteria linked to Wisconsin outbreak

(Reuters) – A northern Illinois resident who died after being diagnosed this year with a blood infection known as Elizabethkingia had the same strain of the bacteria linked to more than a dozen deaths in Wisconsin, health officials said on Tuesday.

Neither the resident’s age nor many other details were released, but Melaney Arnold, spokeswoman for the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH), said the individual had suffered from underlying health issues.

IDPH officials have sent alerts to hospitals requesting they report all cases of Elizabethkingia and save any specimens for possible laboratory testing, Arnold added in a statement.

The infection has infected 48 mostly elderly people in Wisconsin, killing 15. Both Michigan and Illinois have each reported one death and one person infected, the statement said.

The patients who died in Wisconsin had serious underlying conditions, health officials have said, and it remains unclear whether the bacteria caused all the fatalities.

Wisconsin, Michigan and Illinois investigators are working with Atlanta-based The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to determine the possible source of the bacteria.

Elizabethkingia bacteria are rarely reported to cause illness in humans, and can sometimes be found in the respiratory tract. Symptoms can include fever, shortness of breath and chills or cellulitis. Confirmation of the illness requires a laboratory test.

(Reporting by Justin Madden; Editing by Daniel Wallis and James Dalgleish)