This settlement brings the total amount of the settlements reached on behalf of plaintiffs in the Flint Water Crisis cases to over $655 million. The case, a certified environmental water contamination class action, went to jury trial on February 13, 2024. The plaintiffs are represented by Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll, Susman Godfrey, and Pitt McGehee Palmer Bonanni & Rivers.
The class action case was filed in 2016 against VNA and other defendants on behalf of more than 90,000 residents. The class action, which resulted in a landmark $626.25 million settlement against the State of Michigan in 2021, was officially certified against VNA and a second private water engineering company, Lockwood, Andrews & Newnam (LAN), in August 2021. LAN settled with residents last October.
The certified class action maintained that VNA failed to identify corroding pipes, exacerbating the Flint water crisis, and allowed the water contamination to last much longer than it should have, had Veolia recommended the correct remediation, including adding a corrosive chemical to the water supply.
Comment: This is crazy. The Flynt Water Treatment plant operators failed to add the chemicals provided to them to neutralize the acidity of the water supplied. The companies repairing the mains had nothing to do with the lead content of the water at the kitchen level - they were not even in the town. Yet Veolia "caused the contamination to last longer than it should have because it did not recommend"... to its client to implement what it was believed to be doing. (Had Veolia intervened, it would have been sacked for patronizing and overreaching its mandate). The State of Michigan paid the most while the city government and the operators were not even charged. They were 100% Afroamericans, that's why. They are supposed to have no agency at all. The conclusion is to get as far as possible and to have no deals with Flynt.
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