Flint Water Crisis Prompts Class Action Lawsuits Vs City
The poverty-stricken Flint, Michigan is facing a large-scale water crisis that exposes deep-seated problems in governance and public health.
The Flint crisis started when the city made an ill-guided decision to change its water source in an attempt to lower down the cost at the expense of people's health and well-being according to a Wall Street Journal report.
The new water source, however, was not safe for drinking as traces of lead contamination in the water supply were found largely due to an aging plumbing system. Although public managers already switched back to getting water from Detroit again, health risks remain extremely high.
Public outcry over the city's mismanagement prompted angry residents to make the local government accountable. One such resident is Melissa Mays who cooperates with local advocacy groups (ACLU of Michigan, Concerned Pastors for Social Action, and the National Resources Defense Council) to file a lawsuit against the city deemed responsible for the ongoing health disaster.
"We need court oversight to fix this problem because we can't rely on state officials to do so. State officials are responsible for this disaster," said ACLU legal director Michael Steinberg as quoted by WNEM.
But the crux of all existing efforts to expose the Flint tragedy was another non-nonsense Flint mom- the 37-year-old Lee Anne Waters who was responsible for bringing the crisis to national attention.
"Without [Walters] we would be nowhere. She's the crux of all of this," remarked Mona Hanna-Attisha of Flint's Hurley Medical Center as stated in a report by Mother Jones.
