Lawsuits say Jackson water harms children
The lawyer who brought this lawsuitagainst the city says what happened inJackson claims, what happened inJackson has echoes of flint michigan'smassive water contamination scandal.A new federal lawsuit accuses MayorShockley and lumumba, former mayor TonyYarber and others of quote deliberateindifference for failing to protectJackson Children from toxic lead levelsin the city's drinking water.
The leadattorney brought similar legal actionover massive water problems in the cityof flint.
Michigan.
There were liesupon, lies upon lies told in flint,which you know, ultimately led to whatwas a partial settlement for $600million and in Jackson rather than sortof publicly telling lies.
The the onlyfundamental difference custody inJackson from flint is that in Jacksonthere was silence about it.
AttorneyCorey Stern said city leaders nevertold the public, they switched fromsurface water to the reservoir.
In 2014and then back to surface water.
Sternfiled the lawsuit on behalf of 600Jackson Children.
He claims drank thewater not knowing it was contaminatedwith lead.
Many of them have beentested, many of them by way of thosetests have had lead levels in theirblood.
Many of them were never testedbecause the city and the state nevertold them that they were drinking leadtainted water mary lumumba, pushingback against the claims in the lawsuitof the type of studies that cities do.In order to assure that there is nolead present.
The city has accomplishednot just once, but multiple times andit has not revealed any lead accordingto the mayor of the city has been apart of several ePA studies that testedland levels.
The mayor says any leadfound in pipes didn't come from thecity's water distribution system.
Andso if this lawsuit is alleging uh someissue with the city of Jackson, uh thenthe E.
P.
A.
Would have to be a part ofthat cover up.
Uh and a number of otheragencies both state and federal.
Uh andso I don't see any merit in it.
I cansleep at night knowing that I filed alawsuit that I believe 1000% is trueand if he can sleep at night with thecomments that he made and believes thatthey're true, you know, that's whythat's why you play the game.Now we did reach out to former MayorYarber.
He says he couldn't commentbecause he hadn't been officiallyserved with the lawsuit.
Now, thelawyer who filed the suit is seekingunspecified compensatory and punitivedamages from both the city and thestate of Mississippi.
The state healthDepartment is also named in thislawsuit.
They say though, no amount ofmoney can compensate for the cognitiveloss and developmental decline in theChildren who drank that leadcontaminated water not knowing theywere doing so live in South Jackson.Ross.
Adams 16 W.
A.
P.
T.
News