A group of Jackson, Mississippi residents have filed a class-action lawsuit against the city regarding ongoing infrastructure failures that have left more than 150,000 people without clean water for nearly two months. The group says it has lost income and endured emotional distress due to the “neglect, mismanagement, and maintenance failures” that cut off access to clean water.
“Jackson’s water supply was not fit for human consumption due to the high levels of lead and other contaminants,” violating the plaintiffs’ right to bodily integrity,” the lawsuit states, per NBC News.
“This public health crisis, decades in the making, was wholly foreseeable by Defendants’ actions and has left Jackson residents in an untenable position — without access to clean, safe water in 2022 in a major United States city.”
Just last week, Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves lifted the boil-water advisory within the city. However, he did note that “the system is still imperfect.”
“It is possible, although I pray not inevitable, that there will be further interruption,” Reeves stated.
“We cannot perfectly predict what will go wrong with such a broken system.”
Despite recent efforts to address the matter, many local residents have already lost faith in their local leaders and state legislature’s public remarks.
“Many residents have lost trust in the leadership who are telling them that and are very skeptical of any proclamation from a government official that the water is now magically safe for them to drink,” attorney Mark Chalos told NBC News.
“There’s certainly plenty of blame to go around, and our investigation continues, and we’ll see where it leads.”
