Fired water-case worker to get $300,000

DETROIT — Michigan said Friday that it has agreed to pay $300,000 to settle wrongful discharge claims by the only employee who was fired as a result of lead-contaminated water in Flint.

The deal with Liane Shekter Smith, who was head of the state’s drinking water division, came weeks after an arbitrator said she was wrongly fired in 2016 by officials who were likely looking for a “public scapegoat” in one of the worst environmental disasters in U.S. history.

The state this week faced a deadline to appeal the order through the civil service system as well as an award of $191,880 in back pay and other compensation. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s administration instead paid 56% more to Smith to close the case.

Asked why the state is paying more, Hugh McDiarmid Jr., spokesman for the Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy, said there was no guarantee that the arbitrator’s figure would hold during an appeal. Smith had been seeking more than $900,000 in lost compensation.

In 2014-15, Flint’s water was drawn from the Flint River, a money-saving decision that was made by state-appointed managers who were running the ailing city. However, the highly corrosive water wasn’t properly treated before it flowed to roughly 100,000 residents, eroding protective coatings inside the aging pipes. As a result, lead was released from those pipes.

While one official called the problem the result of a “failure of leadership,” during an arbitration hearing, arbitrator Sheldon Stark found a “plausible conclusion that political considerations were at play” in the firing, especially when others with a direct role in Flint were not terminated.

After her firing, Smith was charged with misconduct in office and neglect of duty. She was also put on notice that an involuntary manslaughter case would be pursued because bacteria in the water were linked to a fatal outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease.

But charges were dropped in 2019 in exchange for a no-contest plea to an obscure misdemeanor. The case was erased after a year, under a deal with special prosecutor Todd Flood.