PA Consumer Files Class Action Against Three Water Companies Over Alleged Non-Disclosure of All Contaminants

New to ClassAction.org? Read our Newswire Disclaimer

A proposed class action lawsuit has been filed against Pennsylvania-American Water Company, American Water Works Company and New Jersey American Water over a consumer’s allegation that the companies failed to disclose all contaminants in his and others’ home water distribution systems despite claiming to have done so. Moreover, the plaintiff, whose home the case says is located at the end of a Kimberton, Pennsylvania cul-de-sac, alleges that the defendants partially flooded his house with water and sediment in October 2017 after a system flush and “never showed up to clean it up.”

According to the 31-page complaint, water distribution system operators are federally required to publish quality reports for each system under their charge. The case says that the plaintiff’s home drinking and bathing water is supplied by a system known in operational parlance as “Royersford/Home Water,” the 2018 quality report for which was made available on American Water’s website. Per the complaint, the report stressed that American Water felt that “it is important that you know exactly what was detected and how much of each substance was present in the water.” 

Following the issuance of the report, the plaintiff’s home was partially flooded “during or after a flushing” of the Pennsylvania American Water distribution system servicing the house, the lawsuit says. This event, according to the case, prompted the plaintiff to have his drinking water tested shortly after the next flushing, which took place in April 2018. Samples were taken of the water at that time, and were sent for independent lab testing, the suit states.

The lawsuit claims that the results of this test revealed a “very high” level of tetrachloroethylene, a colorless dry cleaning agent and metal degreaser, as well as nickel, in the water from the plaintiff’s kitchen faucet. American Water’s 2018 “Royersford/Home Water” report did not list tetrachloroethylene, which the lawsuit says can cause liver problems and increase the risk of cancer, among the contaminants found in the plaintiff’s water distribution system, the case says. Moreover, prolonged exposure to the compound commonly used by dry cleaners can lead to “changes in mood, memory, attention, reaction time, and vision,” per the complaint:

The case later posits that the tetrachloroethylene found in the plaintiff’s water may have come from vinyl-lined asbestos cement piping or vinyl-lined water mains installed in the Royersford system by Pennsylvania American Water. 

The lawsuit argues that the water quality reports published by American Water have deceived customers into believing they’re being told the whole story with regard to the contaminants in their water supply. The reports themselves, according to the case, are compiled of data collected on only what’s in water as it's leaving a treatment plant. What happens in the time between then and when it reaches a consumer’s house goes unmentioned, the plaintiff alleges: 

With regard to co-defendants New Jersey American Water and Pennsylvania-America Water, the case alleges the companies similarly issue water quality reports without disclosing each and every contaminant despite promising to do so.

The lawsuit lastly says that on October 25, 2017, the plaintiff’s toilets “spewed out sediment and water with such force that sediment was hitting the walls and water covered the bathroom floors” following a system flush. Pennsylvania-American Water, the case says, knows of the damage the flush caused to the plaintiff’s house yet “has elected to not compensate class members like him for damage done when a water system American Water operates is negligently flushed.”