Lansing -- The state of Michigan has agreed to dismiss its civil lawsuit against an engineering company alleged to have contributed to Flint's lead-tainted water crisis after the company agreed to pay $53 million to 26,000 individual Flint plaintiffs who were suing the firm in separate litigation, Attorney General Dana Nessel announced Friday.
The $53 million settlement with Veolia North America comes a year after Veolia settled a separate class action lawsuit brought against it by Flint residents for $25 million. At that time, the Boston-based company admitted no wrongdoing in its statement on the settlement.
"After years of drawn-out legal battles, this settlement finally closes a chapter for Flint residents," Nessel said in a statement. "While no amount of money can fully repair the damage caused to the Flint community, these funds will provide additional resources to those directly impacted, especially Flint children, by this preventable crisis."
Veolia North America did not immediately return a message seeking comment Friday.
The Flint water crisis began in April 2014, when the city of Flint, while under state-controlled emergency management, switched its drinking water source from Detroit's Lake Huron water withdrawal to the Flint River while completing construction of a new pipeline from Lake Huron to Genesee County, called the Karegnondi pipeline.
Flint's water treatment plant failed to add proper corrosion control chemicals to the Flint River water, causing the city's drinking water to leach toxic lead from water service lines between the roadway and home and through the taps of thousands of homes.
The leaching of lead went on for months before then-Republican Gov. Rick Snyder's administration switched Flint back to Detroit's water system in October 2015 following the discovery of elevated levels of lead in the bloodstreams of Flint children.
In the years that followed, the attorney general's office and other private attorneys representing class and individual plaintiffs sued Veolia, alleging the company failed to identify issues with Flint's corrosion control treatments at the water treatment plant.
Veolia has defended its work in Flint, where the consulting firm conducted a one-week assessment 10 months after the switch to the Flint River. The company maintained last year that it had recommended the city use a corrosion control that would have prevented lead from leaching from homeowners' service lines.
A second engineering firm, Lockwood, Andrews and Newnam, agreed in October 2023 to pay roughly $8 million to settle the case.
The Veolia and LAN settlements are in addition to a roughly $626 million settlement finalized in March 2023 that included $600 million from the state of Michigan, $20 million from Flint, $5 million from McLaren Regional Medical Center and $1.25 million from private engineering company Rowe Professional Services Co. The state's settlement had first been announced in August 2020.