You accuse public servants of criminal wrongdoing for greed. I never saw any evidence of that in the accounts I have read. Government failed and those at the heads of departments are made the scapegoats.
I am unsure of exactly who you think in government is or is not responsible for this "government failure". However, I have read most of a 30,000 word timeline of events and what is increasingly clear is that a couple of dozen individuals are responsible, including supervisors, managers, in-house "experts", communication spin doctors, and a couple of department heads. (Interestingly, the Governors office staff seems mostly to have been frustrated folks who either don't know who to believe, or want some action from the agencies...who dismiss their worries as needless).
Before I mention criminality, let's get to the nugget of what happened.
First, the governor appointed manager for Flint, with the endorsement of the Mayor and Emergency Svcs Manager, hired a engineering consulting firm to look at a cheaper temporary source of water for Flint, the Flint river, till a new pipeline was built and connected to a new provider.
Second, the firm identified the cost, and they (or another firm) specified the water plant upgrades needed. The plant was only for backup if the water from Detroit's system was interrupted.
Three, in spite of the misgivings of the Flint water supervisor, they made the mods and went operational in the spring of 2014.
Four, it took a mere THREE WEEKS for the first flint citizen to complain to the EPA about the scuzzy water. The EPA officials didn't know what to do with his request for free water testing. Nothing came of it.
Then between July and August of December of 2014 the crisis grew. Flint found fecal coliform bacteria, and issued public warnings to boil water. G.M. says the water is so corrosive that they can not use it to clean engine parts and reconnect to Lake Huron. In October the first suspected links to Legionnaires outbreaks are suspected. While the MDEQ found slightly elevated lead in the water, they issued no warnings.
Throughout January of 2015 while the public was not notified of the lead testing results, lead was detected at the University of Michigan and Government Offices of State workers in Flint - measures were taken to help them have safe water.
Then between February and August of 2015, while the lead crisis was fairly obvious to EPA regulator Miguel Del Toral, he was considered to be too incautious in his disclosure of information on his dire findings to a woman whose family suffered lead poisoning, and the EPA sided with the MDEQ that their was no lead problem, just maybe some homeowners lead pipes were at fault (even when they had plastic pipes) - the EPA even apologized to the MDEQ for Toral's relentless warnings.
In August, after Toral's memo was leaked, Virginia Tech professor Marc Edwards notifies MDEQ that he will begin an independent study of Flint water quality. The Virginia Tech study will prove to be a major breakthrough to fully and scientifically document a serious public health threat from lead in Flint’s drinking water. For the next six months he would publish the results of serious toxic lead in the city water supply.
Hanna-Attisha, a local hospital pediatrician, did her own studies (when the MDEQ refused to give her data) of blood drawn of children below the age of 6. Evidence lead poisoning was 2 to 3 times higher occurrence in the children than normal.
By March of 2016, the government agencies 18 months of denials of connections to poisoning and sickness , especially those of the MDEQ were no longer believed.
Who is to blame?
First, anyone whose job it is to manage a water plant and maintain the distribution system. The man who did was either incompetent, unskilled, or indifferent. His job is to provide safe water, properly tested and treated. He did not. Of course, he trusted the state's "experts" - also incompetent.
Second, the engineering consultants who apparently were also incompetent and didn't know that high chlorine levels and therefore anti-corrosion chemicals were necessary.
Third, at least twenty individuals at all levels of the MDEQ, the MCHHS (health and human svcs) and the EPA who denied, obfuscated, spun, and sometimes lied to customer or the press (or each other) about their knowledge. The ones that road-blocked independent study, withheld information, and blamed each other.
Frankly, I would not blame some department heads who dumbly followed the group-think of their in-house "experts". There was, however, at least one or two high level agency folks that were responsible for the disaster.
While many of the charges leveled might have been dubious, at the very least these people were guilty of misconduct in office and neglecting official duties. These are felonies and most of the original 15 charged should have been sent to trial and convicted.