Lawsuit Asks Court to Force State to Fix Flint Water Lines

FLINT, MI – A coalition of activists and national groups filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday alleging the state of Michigan has repeatedly violated the Safe Water Drinking Act and asking the court to step in and secure access to safe drinking water for Flint residents.

The complaint in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Concerned Pastors for Social Action and Flint resident Melissa Mays.

“Flint is Exhibit A for what happens when a state suspends democracy and installs unaccountable bean counters to run a city,” ACLU of Michigan legal director Michael J. Steinberg said in a statement. “In a failed attempt to save a few bucks, state-appointed officials poisoned the drinking water of an important American city, causing permanent damage to an entire generation of its children.

“The people of Flint cannot trust the state of Michigan to fix this man-made disaster and that is why court oversight is critically needed.”

Flint residents were exposed to dangerous levels of lead when the city switched its water source from Lake Huron to corrosive water from the Flint River in 2014 as part of a cost-cutting move while the city was under a state-appointed emergency management.

Since the switch, the blood lead levels of children in Flint have doubled and in some cases tripled, according to a study released in September 2015 and led by Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, pediatric residency director at Flint’s Hurley Children’s Hospital,

The lawsuit asks a federal court to compel the city and state officials to follow federal requirements for testing and treating water to control for lead and to order the prompt replacement of all lead water pipes at no cost to Flint residents.

The groups and Mays also seek appropriate relief to remedy the health and medical harms to Flint residents from the lead contamination. The lawsuit is not seeking monetary damages.

“We are asking a federal court to step in because the people of Flint simply cannot rely on the same government agencies that oversaw the destruction of its infrastructure and contamination of its water to address this crisis,” he said.

Nearly 40 percent of the city’s residents, most of whom are African American, live in poverty.

“Everyone in this country deserves and expects safe drinking water, regardless of your race, economic status or ZIP code,” Pastor Allen Overton, co-founder of Concerned Pastors for Social Action, said in the statement.

“The residents of Flint were stripped of their democratically elected authority and, in the name of saving a few dollars, have been forced to sacrifice their health in the process,” Overton said. “This community deserves accountability, transparency, and justice, in addition to water that is safe to drink.”

Mays, a member of the Flint-based organization Water You Fighting For, said she joined the lawsuit because she no longer thinks the city and state can solve the water crisis.

“For years the state told us we were crazy, that our water was safe, which wasn’t true,” Mays said in the statement. “For the sake of my kids and the people of Flint, we need a federal court to fix Flint’s water problems because these city and state agencies failed us on their own.”

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The federal Safe Drinking Water Act directs water systems to test their drinking water for harmful contaminants and to treat the water to control for those contaminants.

The Flint water crisis has dominated national headlines for weeks, with everyone from politicians to celebrities criticizing Gov. Rick Snyder and his administration for their handling of the situation.

Not until residents elevated public awareness and helped bring national attention on Flint did government officials belatedly acknowledge a problem, and to date, the problems in Flint have not been fixed.

The damage done to the city’s pipes from Flint River water means that lead will continue to contaminate the city’s drinking water until city and state officials stop violating the Safe Drinking Water Act, according to the lawsuit.

The Safe Drinking Water Act allows for citizens to sue when government fails to protect their drinking water. These provisions make the suit announced today different from the class-action suits that have been announced previously.

Snyder spokesman Dave Murray told the Detroit Free Press that “making sure the people of Flint immediately have access to safe, clean water” is the state’s top priority.

Read the complaint below.

Aclu Nrdc Sdwa Complaint