A recent New York Times article reported that Michigan state officials have been charged with involuntary manslaughter for the death of an 85 year old resident of Flint MI. Conviction could lead to a maximum of 20 years in prison. According to the article, the state officials knew about Legionnaires’s disease being associated with the Flint water supply as early as 2014 but did not respond to the problem in a timely fashion, and, more importantly, failed to tell the public about the growing number of Legionnaires’ disease cases. This newspaper article points up a number of issues surrounding Legionnaires’ disease.…
Marc Edwards, a Virginia Tech Civil and Environmental Engineering professor released a selection unpublished results from his team’s study of the 2015 outbreaks of Legionnaires’ Disease that killed 12 people in Flint, Michigan. Edwards, who is most known for sounding the alarm about the dangerous levels of lead in the Flint water system in 2015, believes that the Legionnaires’ Disease outbreak is a result of the water supply switch to the Flint river, coupled with the lack of any application of anti-corrosive and chlorination treatments. To conduct this study, Professor Edwards and his team simulated the outbreak in a lab. Edwards and his…
According to the settlement filings from the ACLU and NRDC’s lawsuit against the City of Flint and the State of Michigan, both defendants are to replace around 18,000 tainted water lines leading to homes from the Flint municipal water supply. The whole operation is expected to cost ninety million dollars and is slated to be completed by 2020. As a result of the disuse of anti-corrosive agents, as well as chlorinated water treatment, these water lines carried not only exceedingly high levels of lead, but legionella bacteria that ended up causing the deaths of 12 Flint residents. More information can be found here…
Last month, famed environmental activist Erin Brockovich and the Alliance to Prevent Legionnaires’ Disease joined forces in Albany to draw attention to the continued rise of Legionnaires’ cases in New York even after the deadly 2014-2015 outbreaks in the Bronx. According to the report released by the Alliance to Prevent Legionnaires’ Disease, New York State leads the nation in Legionnaires’ cases. The report estimates that in 2016 14% of all U.S cases of Legionnaires’ Disease occurred in New York. The report states that the state’s regulatory focus on water cooling towers neglects what they consider to be the real problem. The…
A late 2016 test conducted by the CDC has found a genetic link between samples of Legionella found in the phlegm of patients at McLaren Flint Hospital and Legionella found in water samples taken from multiple water sources at McLaren Flint Hospital. The CDC found that around 99% of the alleles of both samples matched, reaching the threshold for what is considered to be a genetic match. McLaren Flint Hospital was at the epicenter of the 2014-2015 Flint Legionnaires’ Outbreak that corresponded with the much wider-known Flint Water Crisis. Of the 12 reported fatalities in the Flint-area, 10 fatalities were associated with…
Michigan Attorney General, Bill Schuette, filed additional charges, including two against former state-appointed emergency managers, on Tuesday, December 20th in relation to the Flint water crisis. Darnell Earley and Gerald Ambrose were charged on Tuesday with multiple 20-year felonies as a result of their failure to protect Flint residents from health hazards caused by contaminated drinking water. Additional Flint city employees, Howard Croft and Daugherty Johnson, were charged alongside Earley and Ambrose with felony counts of false pretenses and conspiracy to commit false pretenses in the issuance of bonds to pay for a portion of the water project that led…
Corinne Miller, former Director of Disease Control and Prevention within the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services Corinne Miller, who retired earlier this year from her position as the Director of Disease Control and Prevention within the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, accepted a plea agreement last week regarding her involvement in the Flint water crisis. Miller plead no-contest to a misdemeanor charge of willful neglect of duty by a public officer, relinquishing two felony charges. Her misdemeanor charge may even be dismissed after her probation is completed. The plea acknowledges that Miller was aware of dozens of cases of…
On Friday, September 2nd, special prosecutor Todd Flood and Genesee County Prosecutor David Leyton stated that they expect additional criminal charges to be filed regarding the water crisis in Flint, MI. Back in 2014, officials of the Department of Environmental Quality allowed the city to change its water source to the Flint River without requiring the water to be treated to make it less corrosive. Between 2014 and 2015 at least twelve people died as a result of Legionnaires’ disease, an infection caused by Legionella bacteria found in water systems, suggesting a possible correlation between the change in the city’s water source and the Legionnaires’…
Image Credit: Zach Gibson/The New York Times Michigan Governor Rick Snyder and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) head Gina McCarthy attended a house hearing today regarding the water crisis in Flint, MI. The hearing was intended to clarify some of the circumstances surrounding the water crisis, and give both the governor and EPA a chance to publicly speak about their perspective. While appearing before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Governor Snyder admitted that the Flint water crisis was a result of a “failure of government at all levels”. This statement served two purposes for Governor Snyder: it…
Since beginning the investigation into the Flint Water Crisis, Governor Snyder has assembled a Flint Water Advisory Task Force which has advised and implemented strategies to combat the outbreak and administer aid where needed. This has been very important to the recovery of the city, but the task force has also issued warnings about the future. Last Friday, Gov. Snyder’s task force predicted a rise in the number of Legionnaires’ disease cases in the Spring. Legionella bacteria thrive in warmer temperatures, and the transition from Winter to Spring could be a catalyst for Legionella proliferation Mark Bashore did…