Michigan water companies Veolia North America and Lockwood, Andrews & Newman sued over Flint water supply

Michigan state Attoey General, Bill Schuette, has filed a lawsuit against two water companies claiming that they caused and exacerbated Flint, Michigan’s lead-tainted water crisis.

The suit was filed in Genesee County Circuit Court in Flint against water companies Veolia North America and Lockwood, Andrews & Newman. In a recent news release Mr. Schuette said that the companies were hired by the city and that the companies’ “fraudulent and dangerous recommendations made a bad situation worse.”

The city of nearly 100,000 has been struggling with poor water quality ever since they switched from the Detroit system, which draws water from Lake Huron, to the Flint River in April 2014. This was intended as a short term measure employed to save money while another pipeline to Lake Huron was under construction.

Residents of the city quickly began to bring forward complaints that the water looked dirty and tasted and smelled bad. The E. coli bacteria levels in the water had become unsafe. Last September, state officials acknowledged a failure to add chemicals to limit corrosion had enabled the river water to scrape and carry lead from the ageing pipes. Flint retued to the Detroit system in October 2015.