Michigan Attorney General Sues 2 Companies Over Flint Water: 'Kids Were Drinking From A Lead Straw'
FLINT (WWJ/AP) - Michigan's attorney general filed a civil lawsuit Wednesday against two water engineering companies, saying they caused and exacerbated Flint's lead-tainted water crisis and demanding hundreds of millions of dollars in damages.
Attorney General Bill Schuette sued Veolia North America and Lockwood, Andrews & Newnam, known as LAN, saying the companies caused Flint's lead poisoning crisis to continue and worsen, contributing to an ongoing public nuisance.
The companies were hired by the city to assist while it was under state emergency management.
"Many things went tragically wrong in Flint, and both criminal conduct and civil conduct caused harm to the families of Flint and to the taxpayers of Michigan," Schuette said in a statement. "In Flint, Veolia and LAN were hired to do a job and failed miserably. Their fraudulent and dangerous recommendations made a bad situation worse."
The suit alleges that Veolia and LAN committed or caused:
- Professional Negligence: The suit alleges that Veolia and LAN either knew or should have known that high chloride levels in Flint River water would cause corrosion in lead pipes unless treated, resulting in dangerous levels of lead being ingested by those drinking Flint water. Veolia and LAN ignored several key warning signs, including citizen complaints of brown water, which a professional corporation should have seen as cause for further action before submitting reports to the public. Veolia and LAN totally failed to take these actions.
- Public Nuisance: The suit alleges that the actions of Veolia and LAN irresponsibly interfered with the public right to health, safety, peace and comfort in Flint, in addition to violating the Michigan Safe Drinking Water Act, and that this conduct created a long-lasting, and possibly permanent, effect on these public rights. The nuisance, particularly corroded lead pipes that pose a threat to drinking water, is ongoing with no end in sight.
The suit also alleges that Veolia committed:
- Fraud: The suit alleges fraud against Veolia for its false and misleading statements to the public regarding the safety of Flint's drinking water and compliance with state and federal standards, in its taxpayer-funded analysis of the Flint water system.
LAN, based in Houston, began working with Flint in 2013 to prepare its plant to treat new sources of drinking water, including the Flint River. Veolia was hired in 2015 to address the city's water quality.
Scheutte said there could be additional claims in the future against these or other companies and individuals, but he stopped short of saying whether or not Gov. Rick Snyder would be among those charged.
"These civil charges today, the previous criminal charges and the additional charges to come, are an effort, a pathway to rebuild and restore trust and confidence in government to families of Flint and indeed to the families and taxpayers across Michigan," he said.
The suit seeks to recover monetary damages, likely in the hundreds of millions of dollars, for harms caused by Veolia and LAN in Flint.
The struggling city of nearly 100,000 has been dealing with poor water quality since switching from the Detroit system, which draws from Lake Huron, to the Flint River in April 2014. It was intended as a short-term measure to save money while another pipeline to Lake Huron was under construction.
Residents quickly complained that the water looked dirty and tasted and smelled bad. E. coli bacteria hit unsafe levels. And last September, state officials acknowledged a failure to add chemicals to limit corrosion had enabled the river water to scrape lead from aging pipes, exposing people in some homes and schools to the potent neurotoxin.
Flint was under state management at the time, leading to an apology from Gov. Rick Snyder. Flint returned to the Detroit system in October 2015. Criminal charges have already been filed against two state Department of Environmental Quality officials, Stephen Busch and Michael Prysby, while Flint's utilities administrator, Michael Glasgow, pleaded no contest to willful neglect of duty, a misdemeanor.
Busch and Prysby are scheduled for a preliminary exam hearing on July 20 in Genesee County Circuit Court.
Background on the actions of the two companies named in the civil suit:
Veolia: Global giant Veolia contracted with the City of Flint in February 2015 to address the quality of its drinking water. Veolia produced at least one report and one public presentation stating that Flint's drinking water was "in compliance with State and Federal regulations, and based on those standards, the water is considered to meet drinking water requirements." Schuette's suit alleges that Veolia completely failed to recognize the ongoing corrosion in lead pipes or the resulting public health crisis that was unfolding at the time. The suit alleges that not only did Veolia fail to recommend any measures to address corrosion and resulting lead levels, but the recommendations it did offer would have caused the lead corrosion problem to worsen.
Lockwood, Andrews & Newman (LAN): LAN is a Houston, Texas-based company that began working with the City of Flint in 2013 to prepare the city water plant to treat new sources of drinking water, including the Flint River. Schuette's suit alleges that LAN issued a report to the City of Flint in 2014 to address compliance with the Safe Drinking Water Act that did not address the issue of corrosion control and took no action to implement corrosion control. LAN then produced a second report, in August 2015, regarding Safe Drinking water Act compliance and again failed to address the hazards of lead in Flint's water. One of LAN's recommendations included flushing fire hydrants, which likely contributed to artificially low levels of lead in residential water tests.
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