On Wednesday, Attorney General Bill Schuette announced that his office has filed a civil lawsuit in Genesee County Circuit Court.  The suit states that Veolia, a multinational water engineering services corporation, is liable for professional negligence and fraud, which caused Flint’s lead poisoning problem to continue and worsen, and created an ongoing public nuisance.  The civil suit also includes the water engineering services corporation of Lockwood, Andrews & Newman, also for professional negligence that caused the lead poisoning crisis to continue and worsen.  The suit seeks to recover monetary damages, possibly in the hundreds of millions of dollars, according to a press release by the Attorney General.  Once the suit has been served on the two corporations, they have twenty-eight days to respond.

The suit alleges that Veolia and Lockwood, Andrews & Newman committee or caused:

• Professional Negligence: The corporations 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. They 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. 
• Public Nuisance: They 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:  Veolia provided 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.

Veolia entered into a contract with Flint in February 2015 to address the quality of its drinking water.  They 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.”  The lawsuit alleges they failed to recognize the ongoing corrosion or the resulting health crisis that was unfolding at the time.  Additionally, it states they failed to recommend 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 began working with Flint in 2013 to prepare the city water plant to treat new sources of drinking water, including the Flint River.  The suit alleges they issued a report to the city 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 those controls.  A second report was produced in 2015, which failed to address the hazards of lead in Flint’s water.

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