"This public health crisis, decades in the making, was wholly foreseeable by Defendants’ actions and has left Jackson residents in an untenable position – without access to clean, safe water in 2022 in a major United States city," the lawsuit says.
One of the plaintiffs, Raine Becker, 44, has lived in Jackson for two years with her 7-year-old terminally-ill son, Shylar. Shylar has a heart defect and liver disease which requires a feeding tube that has to be flushed with water, Becker told NBC News. Becker says she didn't know about the city's water infrastructure issue until it made the news in August 2022.
“I have said on multiple occasions that it’s a not a matter of if our system would fail, but a matter of when our system would fail," he said at the time.Former Mayor Tony Yarber and Trilogy Engineering Services LLC did not immediately return NBC News requests for comment. Reeves announced last week that a boil-water advisory for the city had been lifted after nearly seven weeks of the water crisis, adding that clean water had been restored but"the system is still imperfect."