A multi-year investigation into how Flint’s water crisis grew to a national emergency ended with zero criminal charges, with Michigan’s attorney general expressing disappointment
The Flint water crisis quickly amassed national attention after residents alerted officials about lead exposure and the actions officials took — and didn’t take — in response to residents’ growing concerns about the safety of their water.
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Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel took office five years into the Flint water crisis after campaigning on a promise to change prosecutions relating to the emergency. Her team ended the investigations with zero criminal convictions after a court ruling overturned a key prosecution method, according to a report released Tuesday.
Several redactions were made in the report due to state laws forbidding release of information before a one-person grand jury and information obtained through investigative subpoenas.
Nessel noted the decision to take on civil litigation barred her from any criminal prosecutions. She said the report gives residents information on why all criminal charges levied against former officials ended without criminal convictions.
The lack of accountability was a blow to Nessel, whose dissatisfaction with how former Republican Attorney General Bill Schuette handled the water crisis investigation and prosecutions was central to her 2018 attorney general campaign.
“Schuette has never had any real interest in seeking justice for the residents of Flint,” Nessel told Bridge Michigan in 2018, a news site operated by the Center for Michigan. “He is merely an opportunist who has used the crisis to further his political ambitions via a series of politically charged show trials.”
After his eight-year run as attorney general, Schuette ran for governor in 2018 and lost to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Nessel is term-limited as attorney general.
In response to Straight Arrow’s inquiry about her regrets about leading the civil lawsuits, Nessel said she doesn’t have any since Flint residents needed assistance to repair damages made to their homes and health from the crisis. The decision allowed Nessel to work directly with Whitmer, Flint and other officials to reach settlements as quickly as possible.
Several of the settlements centered on a company’s negligence in water treatment, and the prolonged lead exposure that sickened at least 22,000 people. The latter has been described as the largest settlement in Michigan’s history, with the state paying $600 million into a settlement fund. All settlements were approved and are handled by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.
Candidly, Nessel said she didn’t want anyone to accuse her of political prosecution if she led the criminal cases. However, she regrets the fallout from those cases, adding that Flint residents deserved accountability.
“I didn’t want to be accused later on of any potential charges being directly tied to any animus that I had against the former governor,” she said at a press conference Tuesday.
That decision forced Nessel to be sealed off from any updates in the criminal cases beyond what she would see in the media or read in public court documents. She said the document released Tuesday outlined what her office uncovered in the criminal cases in hopes Flint residents would understand why certain decisions were made.
“I’m afraid that we’ll never know the entire impact that this has had on Flint, including the financial and emotional damage that it’s caused,” Nessel said.
State Supreme Court ends prosecutions
Nessel spoke at length Tuesday about how the criminal charges broke down in prosecuting several high-ranking Michigan officials for conduct that led to the water crisis.
According to the report, cases ended after a 2022 Michigan Supreme Court ruling nullified one-person grand jury cases. The single person wouldn’t be a resident, but a circuit court judge appointed by another circuit court judge to conduct criminal inquiries under seal. The process allowed the appointed judge to conduct interviews, review exhibits and questioning before determining if probable cause exists to believe someone committed a crime.
Anyone involved in a one-person grand jury case is required to abide by secrecy in the case, even within a department. That kept Nessel in the dark about how criminal charges progressed.
The jury indicted former Gov. Rick Snyder, former state Chief Medical Executive Eden Wells, former state Health and Human Services Director Nick Lyon and several others in state, Genesee County and Flint governments. Charges ranged from misdemeanor neglect of duty to felony involuntary manslaughter. The ruling ended prosecutions against most of the officials indicted.
Snyder and Howard Croft, a former Flint public works director, had their charges dismissed in 2023. Nessel’s office closed the case that same year after the state Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal on dismissing Snyder’s charges.
“An entire city had been poisoned by their water, and the world was watching,” according to the report.
Switch to Flint River causes widespread illnesses
The crisis started after the city switched from using the Detroit River as the main water source in April 2014 to using the Flint River to save money.
Doctors, civil engineers and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency leaders told Michigan and Flint officials about the dangerous levels and test results they received from people’s homes. They each cautioned officials against declaring the issue resolved before Flint declared an emergency in December 2015, according to The New York Times.
Several public health entities outside of Michigan said the switch was dangerous and caused an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease in Genesee County, where Flint’s located. The illness is a severe form of pneumonia that spreads to humans through contaminated water, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC estimated in 2025 that about 99,000 Flint residents were exposed to lead between April 2014 and October 2015.
According to the City of Flint, about $97 million has been invested in replacing active lead pipelines throughout the city. It said on Aug. 13 that work was completed in July for all known service lines. In total, the water crisis involved $165 million in funding for the city to add personnel, replace water main lines, install water treatment and other changes deemed necessary to address the crisis.
Michigan’s Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy said in its semi-annual water quality report that Flint has maintained lead and copper levels within federal standards for about 10 years.
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