NAACP files suit on behalf of Flint residents

The suit says the state of Michigan, city and state officials and two engineering firms failed residents by not detecting problems that caused the lead contamination that has made the city water undrinkable.

“The people of Flint have been harmed through the failure of state officials to provide professional and accountable basic services mandated by federal law and expected by any person living in a major city,” said Cornell William Brooks, the national president and CEO of the nation’s oldest civil rights group.

In April 2014, a state emergency manager appointed by Gov. Rick Snyder signed off on a symbolic vote from the Flint City Council to change the city’s water source to a new local authority. While a pipeline was being built, a state official decided the city would get its water from the Flint River instead of the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department.

The Flint River water, however, was so acidic that it caused the lead pipes bringing water from the city’s cast iron mains into homes to corrode. Lead leached off the pipes and into drinking water throughout the city.

The state and the federal government have declared a state of emergency.

A report done by the state indicated state environmental officials are at fault for the crisis. Three people — two state regulators and one city official — have been charged with state crimes, and the Michigan attorney general’s office is investigating.

The NAACP lawsuit names Snyder, six officials in the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality and three emergency managers, who were state officials in charge of the city. Lockwood, Andrews and Newnam Inc. and Veolia North America are the two engineering firms named in the suit.

According to the complaint, the defendants failed to properly treat the city’s water supply with corrosion control, causing lead to leach off pipes and into the water.

The NAACP and attorneys will be hosting town halls in Flint to discuss the lawsuit.