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@riley@toot.cat

2026-09-07 04:00 UTC

In lead news ... On Friday, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal of a lawsuit against the city of Jackson, Mississippi, which alleged the city knowingly let residents drink lead-contaminated water. The lawsuit, first filed in 2022, says the contamination violated Jacksonians’ constitutional right to bodily integrity. Donald Trump-appointed judge Kurt Engelhardt disagreed. “The Constitution does not provide redress for every governmental wrongdoing,” Engelhardt said. “Defendants’ actions allegedly deprived Plaintiffs of clean water and guileless information. These deprivations, while grievous, do not infringe upon any deeply rooted constitutional right.” [...] The Jackson plaintiffs alleged that their city government deliberately withheld information about the water’s toxicity, and exacerbated the problem through a series of boil-water notices—a practice that can eliminate some bacterial contamination, but also concentrates lead in water. Engelhardt stated there is no “constitutional right to truthful information from officials during a public health crisis.” Jackson is more than 80 percent Black and has a poverty rate that is more than double the national average. The city’s water system has long been in dire need of upgrades. In 2015, officials from the Mississippi State Department of Health found elevated lead levels in the water supply. Instead of immediately informing citizens, they remained silent about the issue for six months, according to reporting from Grist, while residents continued drinking toxic water. Makes one wonder whether he'd rule the same way if a rich person had been served leaded water, doesn't it? (Source: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/09/drinking-water-mississippi-lawsuit/.)

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