Donald Trump · New York · Wired
You Don’t Have a Right to Safe Drinking Water, Trump-Appointed Judge Rules
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This story originally appeared on Mother Jones and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
Key facts
- New York’s state constitution, as of a 2021 amendment, states that “each person shall have a right to clean air and water, and a healthful environment
- In 2015, officials from the Mississippi State Department of Health found elevated lead levels in the water supply
- This story originally appeared on Mother Jones and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration
- The lawsuit, first filed in 2022, says the contamination violated Jacksonians’ constitutional right to bodily integrity
Summary
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. “The Constitution does not provide redress for every governmental wrongdoing,” Engelhardt said. That may be true in Mississippi—but on the state level in at least nine US states, and in more than a dozen other countries, clean drinking water is in fact a protected right. But according to the Fifth Circuit ruling, the US constitution is too narrow for such a claim.