Lawsuit filed against Great Lakes Water Authority over mass flooding in Detroit in June 2021
(CBS DETROIT) - A new lawsuit has been filed over severe flooding in Metro Detroit.
In June 2021, heavy rains caused flooding in Detroit and the Grosse Pointes. At the time, the Great Lakes Water Authority said two water pumping stations weren't running at full capacity because of a power outage. The new lawsuit claims those issues should've been fixed before the flood.
"It was very significant," said Paul Doherty, managing partner at Ven Johnson Law Firm, the law firm handling the lawsuit. "There was hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of damage.
The lawsuit claims the mass flooding happened in large part because the Great Lakes Water Authority's (GLWA) Conner Creek CSO Facility, a pump station, shut down due to a power outage.
"If you look at the actual rain maps, there were large specific [spots] through the east side of Detroit, but that wasn't the whole region," he said. "Birmingham didn't flood, Royal Oak didn't flood, Troy didn't flood. It was just the areas serviced by those pump stations that had the worst flooding damage."
A state of emergency was declared for Detroit and surrounding Wayne County following a storm that started on June 25, 2021, dumping more than six inches of rain while overloading the area's wastewater systems and causing streets and basements to flood.
"They need to be ahead of the storm; you can't start pumping once the water is flooding areas," Doherty said. "These pump stations have a priming system, and that's been known to be a problem for many, many years."
This is the second lawsuit filed after a previous class action lawsuit was dismissed by a judge. Doherty claims there are issues with the plant and staffing, and nothing much has changed since.
CBS News Detroit reached out to GLWA for comment. The organization says it does not comment on pending litigation.
