Attorneys representing 600 Jackson children filed a federal lawsuit this week claiming they had been exposed to lead for years and that numerous officials in the city of Jackson and state of Mississippi attempted to cover it up.
The suit alleged that city and state officials — including current Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba, former Mayor Tony Yarber and officials at the Mississippi State Department of Health — made “conscience-shocking decisions” and “showed deliberate indifference” that exposed the plaintiffs to lead.
The suit says that the city learned of its lead problem within its water well system in 2013 and was warned again in 2014. But instead of addressing it, the city attempted a quick fix that worsened the problem. The suit alleged that after the city learned of the higher lead levels, it quietly switched back over to the well system. Residents were kept in the dark the whole time, the suit says.
The plaintiffs in the case are children living in Jackson who attorneys say have been exposed to lead for years. Corey Stern, who was an attorney for plaintiffs in the Flint, Michigan, water case, is representing the Jackson children.
“Flint wasn’t a one-off — it was the canary in the coal mine that opened our eyes to water crises playing out in cities across America,” Stern said in a press release. “Jackson is yet another tragic and horrifying example of a city failing to do right by its residents and ensure they have clean access to drinking water.”
The lawsuit was filed on Tuesday against the city of Jackson, the Mississippi State Department of Health, Trilogy Engineering Services, and numerous current and former city and state officials “for allowing the city’s drinking water to become contaminated with lead.”
Click here to read the full lawsuit here, or read it below.
Republish this article
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
- Look for the "Republish This Story" button underneath each story. To republish online, simply click the button, copy the html code and paste into your Content Management System (CMS).
- Editorial cartoons and photo essays are not included under the Creative Commons license and therefore do not have the "Republish This Story" button option. To learn more about our cartoon syndication services, click here.
- You can’t edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style.
- You can’t sell or syndicate our stories.
- Any web site our stories appear on must include a contact for your organization.
- If you share our stories on social media, please tag us in your posts using @MSTODAYnews on Facebook and @MSTODAYnews on Twitter.
- You have to credit Mississippi Today. We prefer “Author Name, Mississippi Today” in the byline. If you’re not able to add the byline, please include a line at the top of the story that reads: “This story was originally published by Mississippi Today” and include our website, mississippitoday.org.
- You can’t edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style.
- You cannot republish our editorial cartoons, photographs, illustrations or graphics without specific permission (contact our managing editor Kayleigh Skinner for more information). To learn more about our cartoon syndication services, click here.
- Our stories may appear on pages with ads, but not ads specifically sold against our stories.
- You can’t sell or syndicate our stories.
- You can only publish select stories individually — not as a collection.
- Any web site our stories appear on must include a contact for your organization.
- If you share our stories on social media, please tag us in your posts using @MSTODAYnews on Facebook and @MSTODAYnews on Twitter.