Two former emergency managers are the latest to face charges in the Flint water crisis. Gerald Ambrose and Darnell Earley could be sentenced to up to 46 years in prison for their alleged crimes. Also charged today were former water plant officials, Daugherty Johnson and Howard Croft.
Earley and Ambrose are the highest-ranking officials to be charged to date. They were hired to oversee the city of Flint, Michigan during a financial crisis, and instead, the men allegedly misused millions of dollars in bonds from the Michigan Department of the Treasury. Earley and Ambrose allegedly used the money to help fund a pipeline to bring in drinking water from the Flint River, rather than the purpose for which it was intended: to clean up a polluted lagoon.
Hundreds Of Children Poisoned
Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette says that Ambrose and Earley conspired with Johnson and Croft to run Flint’s drinking water through a treatment facility that wasn’t ready to be operated. Croft allegedly agreed not to have phosphates, anti-corrosive agents, added to the water supply. The pipes corroded, leaching lead into the water supply and poisoning hundreds of Flint children. So many children had high levels of lead in their blood that Mayor Karen Weaver declared a state of emergency.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO):
“Lead can have serious consequences for the health of children. At high levels of exposure, lead attacks the brain and central nervous system to cause coma, convulsions, and even death. Children who survive severe lead poisoning may be left with mental retardation and behavioral disorders.
At lower levels of exposure that cause no obvious symptoms, and that previously were considered safe, lead is now known to produce a spectrum of injury across multiple body systems. In particular, lead affects children’s brain development resulting in reduced intelligence quotient (IQ), behavioral changes such as reduced attention span and increased antisocial behavior, and reduced educational attainment.
Lead exposure also causes anemia, hypertension, renal impairment, immunotoxicity and toxicity to the reproductive organs. The neurological and behavioral effects of lead are believed to be irreversible.”
The corrosion also allowed a bacteria called legionella to grow, which may have led to an outbreak of Legionnaire’s Disease.
Twelve people died in the outbreak.
Mitigating The Damage
Public health officials are working with families whose children were affected by the Flint water crisis. Dr. Nicole Lurie of the United States Health and Human Services Department issued a statement in April 2016:
“Our biggest health concern involves children under the age of six because they are most susceptible to lead exposure and long-term health problems. We know that there is a lot we can do to help mitigate the effects on children who have been exposed to lead, especially to encourage their achievement of developmental milestones.
We are working with HHS grantees in Genesee County to improve access to early childhood education and primary care services through Head Start and the Health Centers Program and to expand and enhance the Medicaid program for children up to age 21 and pregnant women in Flint potentially exposed to lead. We acted quickly to approve a Medicaid expansion in Flint to ensure health care coverage and expanded services.
Approximately 15,000 additional children and pregnant women are now eligible for Medicaid coverage, and 30,000 current Medicaid beneficiaries in the area are eligible for expanded services. We provided $500,000 in additional HHS funding to help two Flint Health Centers provide health care and outreach services to families in Flint.”
Felony Charges
For their alleged roles in the Flint water crisis, Ambrose, Earley, Johnson, and Croft face felony false pretense and conspiracy charges. Ambrose and Earley were also charged with misdemeanor charges of willful neglect of duty and misconduct in office. If convicted, a few decades in prison seems like a small price to pay for crimes that will affect the people of Flint for a lifetime.
Featured image via ABC News.
