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You Don't Have a Right to Safe Drinking Water, US Court Rules

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Re: You Don't Have a Right to Safe Drinking Water, US Court Rules

#141

Post by UncleMeat »

BetterThanSober wrote: post #63
hatefulheart wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop editing your ridiculous comment. Rights are enshrined by society, it’s what we choose. Nothing is a right in and of itself contrary to what your comment tries to imply.

The natural state of being is freedom, it up to society to restrict what they deemed necessary and punish the offenders. Unless the body of water or reservoir are claimed by the government then it is free for anyone to use, quality notwithstanding. Safe, clean water implies certain amount of processing and I agree that unless it is explicitly written then it is up to the users to sanitize that water

The position is not that the government needs to ensure that all bodies of water are potable or that the government needs to provide clean water to every resident.

The claim is that you have a 1983 case against state officials that tell you that the municipal water is clear when they know it is in fact contaminated with lead.

Re: You Don't Have a Right to Safe Drinking Water, US Court Rules

#142

Post by UncleMeat »

quotemstr wrote: post #29
mdp2021 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still not that simple: > The Jackson plaintiffs alleged that their city government deliberately withheld information about the water’s toxicity, and exacerbated the problem through a series of boil-water notices - a practice that can eliminate some bacterial contamination, but also concentrates lead in water. Engelhardt stated there is no “constitutional right to truthful information from officials during a public he…

Where is the constitution does it say the state can't do that?

Substantive due process in the 14th.

The 9th makes it clear that not all rights need to be explicitly in the text.

Re: You Don't Have a Right to Safe Drinking Water, US Court Rules

#143

Post by vrganj »

dotancohen wrote: post #134
vrganj wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But maybe it should be ? What does it say about the US government apparatus and its basic claims to legitimacy if it can't even guarantee safe drinking water? What lack of aspiration and ambition does such a denial demonstrate? Why should its citizens accept such an abdication of even the most basic duties?

What national government _does_ guarantee safe drinking water to its citizens? You are attacking the legitimacy of the US government by holding it to a standard that no nation on Earth is held to. The US has regulations and they are enforced, with some local problems. Just like every other nation on Earth.

You did a neat rhetorical trick there where you swapped out "recognizing a right" for "guarantee".

A right is not a guarantee of perfect outcomes.

Most countries do recognize the right, though implementation is obviously challenging. The US abstained, tellingly: https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/687112?ln=en

Re: You Don't Have a Right to Safe Drinking Water, US Court Rules

#144

Post by UncleMeat »

raverbashing wrote: post #59
stuartjohnson12 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am absolutely mindboggled at the idea that you think the US should not guarantee safe drinking water everywhere for everyone. Unless this comment is pedantic legal snark.

Guarantee of safe water is a right (as given by EPA regulations, etc) But it is not a constitutional right Because putting it where it doesn't belong, without any quantification, is meaningless

What is the remedy? There isn’t a private cause of action through the state courts and suing the government itself will end up with sovereign immunity. If they can’t raise a 1993 claim, how specifically do you expect them to sue?

Re: You Don't Have a Right to Safe Drinking Water, US Court Rules

#145

Post by hatefulheart »

dotancohen wrote: post #133
hatefulheart wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop editing your ridiculous comment. Rights are enshrined by society, it’s what we choose. Nothing is a right in and of itself contrary to what your comment tries to imply.

> Stop editing your ridiculous comment. Do I not have a right to add that second sentence to my comment? Are you offended by me exercising that right? Your demand is ridiculous, doubly so in a conversation about rights.

You just got called out, don’t cry.

Re: You Don't Have a Right to Safe Drinking Water, US Court Rules

#146

Post by pvaldes »

JuniperMesos wrote: post #68
pvaldes wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not sure what a right to water really means. Right to safe water. It means that the water in your kitchen faucet is expected/guaranteed to be safe to drink. It must not have: noxious bacteria causing diarrhea, or liver parasite eggs, or mud, or mercury/heavy metals, or remains of faeces, or fracking methane, or pesticides, or medicines, or obesogens [1]. It must had been professionally filtered and treated to a…

> And if in your small town everybody is obese, before to blame everybody for eating too much, or being lazy couch potatos, look for chemicals in the drinking water, leading to a broken satiety system, causing people to eat huge amounts of food. This is why the right to have safe drinking water is so important. I don't think there's any reason to assume that obesity is caused by any specific chemical found in some bu…

> I don't think there's any reason

Environmental Protection Agency and Food and Drug Administration used to think the opposite when they were at charge of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).

Sadly EPA and FDA are being back-stabbed and slowly murdered by Republicans since 2025 (Yes, like with Voldemort, is important not to be afraid to say it loud). And the death by a thousand cuts had been surgically designed to destroy any capability to prosecute crimes related with the TSCA.

So if you live in USA you are alone on this. You better do your homework and learn as fast as you can. Scientific Journals are your friends. There is an incredible increase of unexpected knowledge about digestive regulation published since the 90's. Forget about miraculous fruits and start your journey with the adipokines.

Meanwhile the world keeps moving. In Europe, since Jan 2026, water suppliers will be required to comply with a parametric value of 2.5μg/L for BisPhenol-A in drinking water, after scientists discovered than it can leak in the hot-water faucets. People sometimes refill their teapots with hot water before to turn on the kitchen.

What is RFK up to lately? Any exciting changes? He found another racoon?

Re: You Don't Have a Right to Safe Drinking Water, US Court Rules

#147

Post by tzs »

shevy-java wrote: post #36

The judge evidently is just a tool employed by Trump - against the people. Interesting that there may still be anyone who is not super-rich be a supporter of Trump if you give them factual evidence like this here. But ignoring this for the moment, the judge says that damage by drinking is exempt from other damage. This makes no sense. Even the USA has protection laws against harm. For instance, liability claims of me…

> The judge evidently is just a tool employed by Trump - against the people. Interesting that there may still be anyone who is not super-rich be a supporter of Trump if you give them factual evidence like this here.

It depends on if they click the link in the article to the actual ruling and read it. If they do all they will conclude is that the article's author is completely incompetent when it comes to writing on court rulings.

First, it was a ruling by 10 judges on a panel of 15, with the other 5 judges dissenting in part and concurring in part. The judge named in the article was the judge who the chief judge assigned the task of writing up the majority opinion.

Second, the court did not say those things that the crappy article made you think they said. Briefly, they said that the harms to the plaintiffs are not covered under the specific statute that plaintiffs used, which covers violations of certain Constitutional rights.

By the way this doesn't mean the plaintiffs are done. This is just their Constitutional claim. They also sued on various other grounds, such as state laws.

Those state claims had been dragged along into federal court due to supplemental jurisdiction, and so were dismissed by the lower federal courts when the Constitutional claims were dismissed, because with the federal claims gone the federal courts no longer had jurisdiction over the state claims. Such as dismissal is "without prejudice", which means plaintiffs can refile those in state court.

Re: You Don't Have a Right to Safe Drinking Water, US Court Rules

#149

Post by lukan »

rascul wrote: post #124
jvdvegt wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So from now on you can safely assume your government is lying (especially the current administration). Worrisome...

Governments lie all the time. This is not new.

New to me is that judges openly confirm and accept it.

Re: You Don't Have a Right to Safe Drinking Water, US Court Rules

#150

Post by MentalM »

mschuster91 wrote: post #22
metalman wrote: post #6

Guess what folks, you now have anti rights.Sometimes I hate America and some americans for the bad things they do, but not like that. A good deal of what america is doing to itself these days looks just as insane as what they are doing to other countrys, or at least other countrys that are not doing it to themselves. There used to be metaphors about poison, and wells, but no one imagined that is could or would leap p…

> A good deal of what america is doing to itself these days looks just as insane as what they are doing to other countrys, or at least other countrys that are not doing it to themselves. America voted for unrestrained rabid turbocapitalism not just once but twice . They knew what MAGA and Project 2025 were about, both announced their intentions clear as day, and now they're getting unrestrained rabid turbocapitalism…

I don't think it's fair to place all the blame on the MAGA and corporations but not on the American working class, which is the main beneficiary of the US government policy and which is electing those government.

It would be fair if American workers showed even a little compassion and compensated the rest of the world for all the damage caused by their government that they elected.

The situation where the median salary in the United States is 40 dollars while it is less than 50 CENTS elsewhere in the world is sheer madness.

Obviously, it's hard to make trillion‑dollar corporations pay, but fairness is required at ALL levels. Even people who get the minimum wage in the US have a huge fair share they have to pay to the rest of the world, where workers earn less than 50 cents an hour.

Nothing prevents you from taking a 90% tax from these Americans and distributing it to those who need the money the most. People are forced to do harmful and dangerous jobs for 50 cents an hour or less but people who elect the American government prefer to do nothing about it. Even more, they put all the blame on the corporations that are hard to act against, while pretending themselves to be a victims. It's sheer hypocrisy.

I'm sorry, but no, you're not victims, you're just as much exploiter as your corporations. An American worker earning 13 dollars an hour in terms of living standards is absurdly closer to Elon Musk than to a tantalum mine worker in the Congo who earns 22 cents an hour so that this American worker can buy a new iPhone and whine online on how some people think they crazy because they have mutilated their genitals or something.

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