Lead contamination of Flint water draws multiple lawsuits

Two-year-old Sophia Waid tested with a blood lead level of 14 after drinking Flint water.

U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee has expressed his disappointment after Gov. Snyder declined an invitation to a House Democrats’ Feb. 10 committee meeting taking place to discuss the Flint water crisis. A blood lead level above five is considered toxic.

In 2014, a Snyder-appointed emergency manager approved the switch of Flint’s water supply from Lake Huron to corrosive Flint River water, which caused lead in aging infrastructure to leach and expose an unknown number residents to lead poisoning.

The lawsuit by Flint residents Luke Waid and Michelle Rodriguez said government officials and workers had violated their constitutional rights to due process in the course of switching the source of the city’s water to the Flint River from Lake Huron in April 2014.

Separately, the family of a 2-year-old girl from Flint, who tested high for lead levels, has filed a federal lawsuit against various officials in MI and Flint, including Snyder.

“They could have told us months in advance and we could have had home filtration systems set up so that it could have never gotten this far”, he said.

Following in the footsteps of Big Sean, Meek Mill and others, Beyonce has launched a campaign to help aid families affected by the water crisis in Flint, Mich. Furthermore, according to some witnesses and media reports, state officials diluted water samples or took incomplete “slow drip water samples” to game results and claim that the water was safe.

The lawsuit names the city of Flint and the state of MI and several officials as defendants.

A House Oversight Committee hearing last Wednesday didn’t include some key people like Snyder and former Flint Emergency Manager Darnell Earley.

The new legal battle also comes after a coalition of local residents and advocacy groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union of MI, filed a lawsuit at the end of January aimed at pressuring Flint and MI authorities to replace corroded water pipes.

Residents have long reported brown, bad-tasting and foul-smelling water and unexplained sicknesses.