Every person should have reliable access to safe, clean drinking water. But this is far from reality for too many across the globe due in large part to aging infrastructure, lack of public investment, and unchecked corporate greed.
Yesterday, Veolia, the world’s largest private water corporation, held its annual shareholders’ meeting in Paris, celebrating its profit-making schemes that generated billions of euros in 2024. But of all the stories they shared in this meeting, there’s one that Veolia failed to include: that today marks the eleventh year since the start of the Flint water crisis. And while Veolia recently announced a settlement with residents, it still refused any legal admission of wrongdoing in Flint.
Flint’s water crisis: What happened and what role did Veolia play?
On April 25, 2014, Flint’s state-appointed emergency manager allowed the switch of Flint’s water supply, which occurred without treating the water to protect it from pipe corrosion. What followed was a series of government failures and corporate abuse that exacerbated this public health and human rights disaster.
To this day, Flint lacks reliable access to clean, drinking water – and a majority of residents still haven’t seen a penny of compensation from the legal settlements. Flint residents are still dealing with the long-term health impacts of the water contamination. Studies show that children who were exposed to lead during the crisis are more likely to experience learning delays. In general, lead exposure is also linked to the potential for early on-set dementia and higher risk of death from cardiovascular disease.
Veolia was brought in early during the crisis to assess Flint’s water system and failed to sound the alarm. After internally discussing the potential for lead contamination over email (which Corporate Accountability helped bring to light by digging through troves of court documents), Veolia told Flint residents their water was safe to drink. All the while, Veolia chased other lucrative contracts with the city.
In the years since, Veolia has poured money into dubious PR efforts to distort and distract from the accusations related to its role in the crisis.
The latest: Flint residents’ case against Veolia ends in settlement
Eleven years on, the legal battles have started to come to a close. In February 2025, Veolia announced a settlement with about 26,000 Flint residents for $53 million. In exchange, the state agreed to drop its separate case against Veolia.
But what does this mean for Flint residents and other communities impacted by Veolia?
For years, Flint residents have sued the government and corporate actors that played a role in this crisis. And Flint Rising, a local grassroots group, has called for federal action to advocate for infrastructure funding and updated environmental regulations, organized in solidarity with other communities facing water injustices, and connected the dots between Veolia’s actions in Flint to Pittsburgh, Nigeria, and beyond.
Reflecting on the outcome of the lawsuits, Nayyirah Shariff, Executive Director of Flint Rising, put it succinctly: “The fact that our community members could force Veolia to settle is a testament to their determination and the strength of their case. However, this settlement cannot undo Veolia’s abuses in Flint.”
And Nayyirah’s right: the financial compensation does not make up for Veolia’s failure to sound the alarm about Flint’s water. Though the settlement amount may seem significant, Veolia is actually paying a meager amount – only about 0.1% of the nearly $50 billion in revenue that it raked from its business across the globe last year. Without accounting for attorneys’ fees, this settlement would amount to about $2,000 per claimant from the corporation. Veolia also refused any legal admission of wrongdoing, noting in a press release that “[t]his final settlement is in no way an admission of responsibility…” This means there’s hardly anything barring it from doing the same to other communities.
Veolia’s track record: Private water schemes impact communities from Pittsburgh to Gabon
The particular dynamics of Flint’s story are unique to the city, but its experience of the private water industry is not unusual. In fact, other communities in the U.S. and around the world have similarly faced the dangerous consequences of private water schemes.
In recent years, Veolia has faced lawsuits in Buffalo, where residents sued the corporation and the city for violating constitutional rights by depriving customers of fluoridated drinking water, and in Southwest San Diego County, where residents sued Veolia for alleged improper wastewater treatment. But some of the worst cases include:
- Pittsburgh, PA: Under Veolia’s management, the city’s water authority switched a corrosion control chemical to a cheaper alternative, without the required state approval, and miscalculation related to chemicals used potentially led to a crisis that soon followed.
- Gabon: A typhoid outbreak occurred in 2004, during the time a Veolia subsidiary managed the water utility. Government officials also alleged “widespread supply cuts, bill irregularities, environmental hazards, and unkept commitments” under Veolia’s management, and ultimately the State decided to discontinue its contract with the Veolia-controlled utility.
- Plymouth, MA: Under Veolia’s operation of the city’s wastewater treatment system, over 10 million gallons of raw untreated sewage discharged in areas around Plymouth between December 2015 and January 2016.
Across the globe, Veolia’s dangerous schemes have risked public access to clean and affordable water, one of our most essential resources. This story rings familiar for far too many. It is no coincidence that private water corporations often target cash-strapped cities to privatize water systems. And while private water corporations line their coffers with public dollars, all too often, communities pay the price through unaffordable water bills, job losses, and poorer quality service.
Moving forward: Holding the private water industry accountable and preventing future harm
Despite the limited progress, Flint residents march forward on their struggle for justice. And together, we must ensure the following:
First, Flint residents must receive their settlement funds swiftly so they can get the resources they need to deal with the impacts of the crisis. A vast majority still haven’t received a penny of settlement funds so far, including from the state of Michigan’s landmark $626 million settlement with residents. Recent reporting suggests that most residents will receive settlement checks this summer – over eleven years since the start of the crisis – with the highest payments going to child claimants who were aged 6 or under during the crisis and susceptible to developmental delays due to lead exposure.
Second, we must listen to and mobilize to meet the needs of Flint residents. While Michigan has failed to meaningfully hold any of the government actors, such as Former Governor Rick Snyder, or corporations legally accountable for their role in the crisis, the state can take steps to rectify its mistakes by addressing community needs, including Flint Rising’s three demands to the state of Michigan:
- Refund all bills residents paid since April 2014 till the water is deemed safe;
- Replace all damaged water service lines using Flint workers; and
- Provide comprehensive healthcare and educational services for all those from the community.
Third, we cannot allow Veolia to sweep its abuses under the rug. People and public officials need to know about the dangers of doing business with Veolia and other private water corporations. By taking action together, we can take on corporate giants and win.
And it really is possible. Last year, we and our allies in Houston stopped a major water privatization threat by mobilizing a group of residents, environmental activists, and labor leaders, who called attention to the dangerous track record of the private water industry and voiced opposition to these plans at City Council. And by building powerful coalitions, public water advocates have won similar victories in cities across the U.S. like Providence, St. Louis, and Baltimore, and around the world like Lagos.
Together, we can stop corporate abuse, keep our water systems under community control, and ensure that public dollars go directly towards fixing the issues that plague our water systems – addressing leaky pipes, keeping lead out of our water, and making rates affordable.
As our Water Campaign Director, Neil Gupta, shared with reporters after Veolia’s settlement announcement, “With billionaire CEOs at the highest levels of government, it’s more important than ever that we safeguard our most precious resource, and keep our communities’ water under community control.”
