Here's What Money Gov. Snyder Spends On Lawyers For Flint Crisis Could Buy

The legal meter is running on the Flint water crisis, and it’s not the lead-poisoned people of Flint who are getting rich.

According to public records, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder is spending about $6,500 a day for lawyers to defend him in a flurry of lawsuits related to the catastrophe.

That’s according to public records obtained by the Detroit Free Press under the Freedom of Information Act. At the rate Snyder’s lawyers are billing the state, the $1.2-million figure approved by the State Administrative Board could evaporate quickly.

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Driker is defending Snyder only in the civil cases. Criminal defense lawyers with Warner, Norcross & Judd are subject to a billing cap of $800,000, the Free Press said.

At the $6,500-a-day rate, the costs add up quickly:

• $45,500 a week,
• $197,116 a month,
• $2,366,000 a year.

On a shopping trip, $6,500 a day — let alone $2.36 million — is an insane amount of money to try to spend, although perhaps not for public officials who are facing their own personal Waterloos.

Here’s what we came up with on a hypothetical shopping trip on Amazon.com (figures rounded):

A PUR Advanced Faucet Filter that promises to screen out 99 percent of the lead from water goes for $24.97. Assuming 2010 U.S. Census figures showing 51,300 occupied housing units are still more or less accurate, Snyder could buy one for almost every household for the $1.2 million he’s authorized to spend on lawyers. Total spent: $1,280,961.

The Outer EQ Insulated Stainless Steel Water Bottle costs $19.99 each. Let’s get one for each of the residents of Flint so they can fill up any time they’re near a safe water supply (spendy, yes, but after drinking lead-poisoned water for months, should we quibble?). Total spent: $2,000,000.

Werner Troesken’s “The Great Lead Water Disaster,” published by MIT Press in 2008 (six years before Flint), looks at “a long-running environmental and public catastrophe: 150 years of lead water systems and the associated sickness, premature death, political inaction and social denial,” according to the Amazon book synopsis. At $19.33 in the paperback version, we’ll take one for each of the 38 senators and 110 state representatives in Michigan. There’s still a lot of lawyer money left. Total spent: $2,861.

“Roger & Me,” the documentary about the effect of General Motors’ exit from Flint from Michael Moore, who grew up in Flint and says Snyder should be sent to jail over his handling of the water crisis, costs $14.99. Let’s go ahead and buy one for each lawmaker. Letting the lawyer knock off early a couple of days would pay for this. Total spent: $2,220.

A new Gateway computer (and we’re buying it in homage to Rick “One Tough Nerd” Snyder, who headed Gateway in the private sector) with one of those towers that seems to be teeming with terabytes enough to store the approximately 2.5 million government emails relating to the crisis that criminal investigators are sorting through. This will cost the lawyer just one long lunch. Total spent: $1,243.

An eight-count pack of 12-ounce bottles of Aquafina Purified Drinking Water goes for $3.27. One eight-pack for each of the city’s 100,000 residents — clean up, brush your teeth, cook and hydrate yourself with eight bottles of water a day, will you? — per day would cost about $327,000. Now, buy that water every day for a year. Sorry, Governor, there’s no money left over for lawyers. Total spent: $119,355,000.