No constitutional right to clean water, federal court finds

A federal appeals court ruled that the U.S. Constitution does not guarantee the right to clean drinking water in a Sept. 4 decision rejecting Jackson, Mississippi, residents’ lawsuit over the city’s lead-contaminated water system.

The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling dismissing residents’ 2022 lawsuit. The plaintiffs, Priscilla Sterling, Raine Becker, Shawn Miller and John Bennett, alleged that the city knowingly allowed residents to drink unsafe water.

They argued that the water contamination violated their constitutional right to bodily integrity under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause.

In the majority decision, Judge Kurt Engelhardt wrote that while the deprivation of clean water was “grievous,” it did “not infringe upon any deeply rooted constitutional right.”

“We are skeptical that the right to not be harmed by lead-contaminated water fits within the right to bodily integrity, and Plaintiffs point us to no historical tradition or Supreme Court precedent convincing us,” he wrote.

He also said there was no constitutional right to “truthful information from officials during a public health crisis.”

The lawsuit against the City of Jackson stemmed from testing conducted by the Mississippi State Health Department between 2010 and 2013 showing rising levels of lead in the…

Original source: https://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/