Lawsuit: LADWP 'Knowingly Poisoned' San Fernando Valley Residents
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) - A class-action lawsuit has been filed on behalf of San Fernando Valley residents that claims the City of Los Angeles' Department of Water & Power (LADWP) 'knowingly poisoned' people in the area.
The lawsuit claims that for at least three years, the LADWP. and its general managers, Marty Adams and David Wright, allowed its Valley Generation Station to leak gas into surrounding neighborhoods.
Court papers allege that LADWP deliberately neglected the facility and sacrificed the health and well-being of neighbors in the area. It goes on to say these residents are predominantly Latinx and African-American who are "working-class, economically poor, and educationally disadvantaged."
The lawsuit says the communities neighboring the faulty station were being exposed to toxins and foul odors, yet LADWP did nothing to warn residents of those harms.
In August of 2015, LADWP reached a $44 million settlement in a class-action lawsuit accusing the agency of over-billing as a result of problematic initiation of a new billing system.
