Federal court: No Constitutional Right to Clean Water

TL;DR: A federal appeals court has ruled that Americans have no constitutional right to clean, lead-free drinking water — or even truthful information from officials during a water crisis. The ruling came from a lawsuit over Jackson, Mississippi’s long-running water problems. The court stressed that residents can still sue under other laws. The case carries an uncomfortable echo in Alabama, where poor and rural communities, especially in the Black Belt, have struggled for decades with failing water and sewer systems.

A federal appeals court has delivered a stark message to residents of Jackson, Mississippi: However bad their water may be, the U.S. Constitution does not guarantee them clean water.

The Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit brought by Jackson residents who said city officials knowingly allowed them to drink lead-tainted water and misled the public about the danger.

“It is undisputed that the Constitution does not guarantee clean water,” the court said in its ruling.

That does not mean federal and State clean-water laws no longer apply. Nor does it give governments a free hand to poison a public water supply. Instead, the ruling draws a sharp line between rights protected by statute and a fundamental right protected by the Constitution itself.

The plaintiffs — Priscilla Sterling, Raine Becker, Shawn Miller and John Bennett — filed suit in 2022. They alleged that Jackson’s actions and failures caused lead to enter the city’s drinking water and that officials then misrepresented the water as safe. The residents argued that this violated their constitutional right to “bodily integrity.”

According to the lawsuit, State testing between 2010 and 2013 showed lead in Jackson’s water was “increasing at an alarming rate.” The plaintiffs accused the city of failing to stop the problem and, in some cases, making it worse.

The Fifth Circuit was not convinced that those claims created a constitutional case.

“We are skeptical that the right to not be harmed by lead-contaminated water fits within the right to bodily integrity, and Plaintiffs point us to no historical tradition or Supreme Court precedent convincing us otherwise,” Judge Kurt Engelhardt wrote for the court.

The court said the residents were asking judges to recognize two new constitutional rights: a right to be free from exposure to contaminated water and a right to accurate information from public officials.

Neither, the court held, is deeply rooted in the nation’s history and tradition.

“These deprivations, while grievous, do not infringe upon any deeply rooted constitutional right,” the court said.

The ruling went one striking step further. Engelhardt wrote that there is no “constitutional right to truthful information from officials during a public health crisis.”

In other words, even if the allegations are true, the Constitution itself does not necessarily provide the remedy.

“The Constitution does not provide a remedy for Plaintiffs’ injuries,” the opinion said. “But that does not mean they are without a remedy. Plaintiffs may pursue tort claims against Defendants, elect officials who will better manage the water system and provide accurate information to the public, or petition their State and federal legislatures for other remedies.”

That distinction matters.

Federal laws such as the Safe Drinking Water Act still regulate public water systems and set standards for contaminants. States also regulate water systems, and residents can have claims under environmental laws, civil rights laws, State tort law or other statutes depending on the facts.

But the Fifth Circuit rejected the broader claim that clean drinking water itself is protected as a fundamental constitutional right.

Jackson Mayor John Horhn welcomed the decision.

“We are pleased that the Fifth Circuit upheld the dismissal of these claims. The City remains committed to the health, safety, and well-being of every Jackson resident,” Horhn said.

The case should sound familiar in Alabama.

Some of the nation’s most notorious water and sanitation problems sit just to the east of Mississippi in Alabama’s Black Belt, where poverty, sparse populations, aging systems and the region’s dense soil have made basic sewer service difficult and costly.

The Alabama Department of Public Health has said that about 90 percent of Black Belt soil does not easily absorb water, making conventional septic systems ineffective in many areas.

The problem can be — and in many cases, is — severe.

A 2025 study of sanitation in the Black Belt cited a survey of roughly 700 rural homes in Wilcox and Hale counties that found about half had raw sewage on the ground. Researchers said some communities have relied on failing septic systems or “straight pipes” that simply discharge household wastewater outside.

A separate study of children in Wilcox, Lowndes and Perry Counties found 11 percent of surveyed households reported straight-piping wastewater onto their property, while 7.8 percent reported raw sewage in their yard or home during the prior year.

Drinking water has raised concerns as well. A study of rural Black Belt households found about 8 percent of tested public-water samples and 20 percent of private-well samples were positive for fecal coliform bacteria.

More recent work has found residents still complaining of discolored or foul-smelling water. A 2024 CDC Foundation report on rural Alabama quoted Wilcox County nurse Janice Robinson describing what residents told local health workers: “My water has an odor. My water comes out with a color. After I take a bath, I smell like my water.”

The federal government has acknowledged the scale of the sanitation problem. The EPA and USDA selected Lowndes and Greene counties for a program aimed at communities that lack basic wastewater infrastructure. The EPA said failing septic tanks and straight pipes in Greene County have allowed sewage onto the ground, into surface water and potentially into groundwater.

Alabama has since poured major sums into the problem. ADEM reported in 2024 that more than $1.15 billion had been invested in drinking-water and sewer projects during 2022 and 2023, including $157 million for 53 projects in the Black Belt.

Yet infrastructure trouble is hardly confined to rural Alabama.

The court-controlled Prichard Water Works and Sewer Board has been struggling with decades of deferred work and financial problems. The receiver overseeing the utility says its infrastructure is generally in poor condition, contributing to high water loss, sewer overflows and inadequate wastewater treatment. At one point, more than 60 percent of water moving through the distribution system was being lost through leaks.

Admittedly, there has been some progress. Receiver John Young said in June that water use had fallen by about 12 percent as crews addressed leaks in the aging system. Still, much remains to be done, in Pritchard and across Alabama.

It is worth noting that the Jackson ruling does not directly govern Alabama. Mississippi falls within the Fifth Circuit; Alabama is in the Eleventh Circuit.

Still, the case poses a question that reaches well beyond one city or one court.

Federal and State governments can regulate drinking water. Congress can appropriate billions to replace pipes, build treatment plants and extend sewer systems. Agencies can set contaminant limits and punish utilities that violate them.

But according to the Fifth Circuit, beneath that entire structure lies a surprising constitutional reality.

Clean water is a basic human need.

Under the federal Constitution, the court says, it is not a fundamental right.

10th Amendment, anyone?