The suit – which seeks class-action status – alleges that tens of thousands of residents have suffered physical and economic injuries and damages. It argues officials fail to take action over ‘dangerous levels of Lead‘ in drinking water and ‘downplay the severity of the contamination’ in the predominantly black, low-income city where residents struggle with Poverty, Racism, Violence and obesity.
The suit stemming from Flint, Michigan‘s lead-contaminated water was filed Monday on behalf of the city’s residents against Michigan Governor Rick Snyder and other current and former government officials and corporations.
A report by the state auditor general released Friday finds state environmental regulators making crucial-errors as Flint began using the new drinking water source that would become contaminated with lead. It says staffers in the Department of Environmental Quality’s drinking water office failed to order the city to treat its water with anti-corrosion chemicals as it switched to the river in April 2014, and the rules they failed to heed may not be strong enough to protect the public.
Gov. Rick Snyder, whose administration repeatedly downplayed the lead threat, now admits it’s a ‘disaster.’
No level of lead in the human body is considered safe, especially in children. The river water also may have been a source of Legionaire’s disease, which killed at least nine people in the region.
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1. ‘Lead Contamination in Flint — An Abject Failure to Protect Public Health’ David C. Bellinger, Ph.d IN: The New England Journal of Medicine 10 February, 2016 (www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1601013)
2. ‘Elevated Blood Lead Levels in Children Associated With the Flint Drinking Water Crisis: A Spatial Analysis of Risk and Public Health Response.’ Mona Hanna-Attisha, M.D., M.P.H., Jenny LaChance, M.S., Richard Casey Sadler, Ph.d and Allison Champney Schnepp, M.D. IN: American Journal of Public Health, February 2016 (http://ajph.aphapublications.org/…/pdf/10.…/AJPH.2015.303003)
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