NAACP Sues Michigan officials over #FlintWaterCrisis
Another lawsuit accuses Flint ‘s Democratic mayor of diverting donations to campaign funds.
The last time we looked at Flint, the courts arraigned three bureaucrats over their roles in allowing lead-infused water to contaminate the municipal drinking water supply.
Now, in an apparent bid to regain some relevancy, one national group is filing a lawsuit over the water-crisis.
Another big name has surfaced in the tsunami of Flint water lawsuits: the NAACP [National Association for the Advancement of Colored People], which is suing several state officials and two engineering firms, alleging they poisoned a city with toxic drinking water by failing to detect that something was wrong, pretending a problem didn’t exist and ignoring numerous red flags.
“Just the color of Flint’s water should have led any reasonable engineer to the conclusion that Flint’s pipes were dangerously corroded,” the 103-page lawsuit states.
The NAACP announced the lawsuit today, though it was filed on March 31 in U.S. District Court, where at least two dozen other Flint-related lawsuits are pending. This one blames Gov. Rick Snyder, several state officials and two engineering firms for the crisis, claiming they engaged in “gross negligence” and “outrageous conduct” that harmed many. Not only did officials fail to detect a water problem, the lawsuits says, but they made the problem worse by not properly treating the water. And even when they knew the water was tainted, the suit says, public officials repeatedly maintained that it was safe to drink, despite a deadly Legionnaires’ disease outbreak linked to the water.
“All the while — despite public assurances of safety — government officials in Flint quietly switched to bottled water while the citizens and businesses of Flint continued to drink dangerously contaminated water,” the lawsuit states.
Personally, I am wondering why this group, in particular, needs to sue state officials. My reports clearly show the lead contamination was not limited by race.
And neither is the potential for political corruption. Here is Democratic mayor of Flint, Karen Weaver, talking about the situation and “broken trust.”
There is a lawsuit claiming that donations for Flint to help the victims was diverted to the mayor’s campaign fund.
There’s a lot of blame to go around for the Flint water crisis, but a federal lawsuit filed Monday against the city’s mayor claims even attempts to make things right have been fraught with mismanagement and corruption. The suit was filed by former city administrator Natasha Henderson, who alleges she was wrongfully fired from her post in February after she tried to initiate an investigation into Flint Mayor Karen Weaver after she learned Weaver was allegedly diverting funds earmarked for water crisis charities into a campaign account.
Diverting emergency funding for a re-election would damage civic trust, indeed.
It looks like the mess in Flint is still getting messier.
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Comments
I wonder what race/ethnicity most of the lawyers representing the NAACP are. One would hate to think they ended up with an affirmative action law school graduate.
Would you? Ask that really fast and you’ll get your answer.
Historically, the NAA(l)CP has had some really fine lawyers…and law firms…represent them.
The facts here are not pretty for the defendants, though I doubt they can get to the governor.
This mayor is part of the problem. She does not sound anything like a mayor.
Setting aside the poor people of Flint who actually denied their own eyesight and drank the water, the whole situation is rather comical.
I don’t think the city fathers of Mogadishu could have done any worse.
I don’t see the NAACP case going very far. I don’t know MI law, but public officials tend to have pretty extensive immunity. If gross negligence were all it took, then why not sue the VA administrators for the mold and long waiting lines? Or Eric Holder and the head of the ATF for Fast and Furious? Or officials at the State department for the four deaths in Benghazi? I have long believed that one of the big reasons that governments do so many things so badly is because their people have such extensive immunity from financial liability for their actions.
IIRC, once the water left the Flint, MI treatment facility, it was generally safe for drinking. The problem arose because there was a compound in the water that cause the distribution system in Flint to “leech lead” into the water. Had the water been tested at the faucet, it never, ever would have passed. Because it was tested at the treatment facility, it was ok. It’s not like the Flint treatment facility pumped lead tainted water into its distribution lines.
Further, the water could have had an additive to correct the corrosive nature of the Flint River water, but hey. They were broke. Pretty much more Black on Black crime.