Friday's 2-1 ruling by the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals marks the third time a federal court has told the state to begin the water deliveries, which the state argues is unnecessary and too costly. “Although there may be no known precedent for the door-to-door delivery of bottled water, there is also no precedent for the systematic infrastructure damage to a water delivery system that has caused thousands of people to be exposed to poisonous water,” circuit judges Damon Keith and Bernice Donald wrote in Friday’s opinion. The appeals court disputed the state’s cost projection for blanket home deliveries - $10.5 million a month - as “disingenuous” and “not supported by the record.”

Under Lawson’s order, city and state officials must provide in-home filtration or deliver four cases of bottled water per affected household each week, except where they can prove a water filter is installed and properly maintained, or to residents opting out. Flint was under the control of a state-appointed emergency manager when the drinking water became contaminated in April 2014, due to improper treatment of Flint River water after the city stopped getting its drinking water from Detroit.
A Federal appeals court upholds the November 10 lower court order that Michigan must deliver bottled water or provide in-home filtration to all qualified residents affected by lead contamination in the city of Flint.