Flint Bottled Water Deliveries Must Start, 6th Circuit Rules

A mostly unsympathetic three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Friday that bottled water deliveries must begin immediately to Flint residents whose homes don’t have filter systems on their kitchen taps, upholding a lower court judge’s decision ordering the door-to-door deliveries in response to the city’s long-running lead water crisis.

The panel’s 2-1 decision marks the third time a federal court has ordered the water deliveries, which the state argued were unnecessary and costly. In two previous rulings ordering the door-to-door water deliveries, U.S. District Judge David Lawson said the state was unable to show that filtering systems to remove the lead from the water had been properly installed.

Senior Judge Damon Keith and Judge Bernice Donald wrote in Friday’s majority opinion that the the state’s “disingenuous claim that the daily delivery of bottled water would be at an expense of $10.5 million a month is not supported by the record.”

“Flint residents continue to suffer irreparable harm from a lack of reliable access to safe drinking water,” they wrote. “Many residents who rely on filters that are improperly installed continue to be at risk of exposure to lead. Compliance with the order only requires that the state defendants deliver bottled water to homes until they ensure that a home has a properly installed and maintained water filter, or if the the residents opt out of the delivery service.”

Judge Jeffrey Sutton said in a dissenting opinion that it is unclear if Flint’s drinking water is still contaminated and ordering water delivery could “do more harm than good. Instead, he said the state should focus their efforts on “measuring current water quality and ensuring that each filter works."

“That most assuredly will not happen in the face of this order,” he wote.

Flint’s water became contaminated more than two years ago when the city switched its water supply to the Flint River from the cleaner, but more expensive, water drawn from Lake Huron. For many of residents. Since then, potentially thousands of Flint residents have been exposed to the lead tainted water, including children, for whom lead poisoning can be a life sentence of emotional and intellectual problems.

The court’s decision is the latest in a lawsuit filed by the Concerned Pastors for Flint, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the ACLU, and Flint resident and activist Melissa Mays.

In a news release, Mays said the court’s decision “is much-needed good news for the people of Flint.”

“I’m especially pleased the court rejected the state’s complaints about the ‘burden’ of delivering safe drinking water to Flint,” she said. “Its time for the city and state officials to do their jobs and join the community as we fight for clean water and justice for Flint.”

Astor Allen Overton of the Concerned Pastors for Social Action, also a plaintiff in the lawsuit, said that with winter coming, the decision is an important victory for residents who still don’t have functioning water filters in their homes or a reliable means to get bottled water.

“That must change quickly,” he said.

In an emailed statement to the Detroit Free Press, Anna Heaton, a spokeswoman for Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, said Flint residents who request bottled water deliveries are getting them. The service is available by dialing 2-1-1.

“The state and city are in agreement that bottled water deliveries to residents who do not require them will reduce the progress made in the city’s recovery,” Heaton wrote. “The dispute in this matter is over science, not over providing resources to residents of Flint. This is a complex issue where the data is monitored closely and updated frequently and the court did not address more recent testing showing Flint’s lead levels under the federal action level.”

Photo by Steven Depolo via Flickr Commons