On July 10, a federal jury in Columbus, Ohio returned verdicts totaling nearly $11 million against the City of Zanesville, Muskingum County, and the East Muskingum Water Authority, for denying access to public water services on the basis of race to the African-American community of Coal Run in Ohio. Each of the 67 plaintiffs in the case, Jerry Kennedy, et al. v. City of Zanesville, Ohio, et al. Case No. 2:03-cv-01047, S.D. Ohio., testified about the hardships they endured residing in a community that has had no running water for over 50 years despite its proximity to Zanesville, a municipality of over 25,000 persons. As reported in the Time online article Making Water a Matter of Race, lead plaintiff Jerry Kennedy, a life long resident of Coal Run whose home is within yards of the municipal water line, has relied mostly on rain or hauls from the water treatment plant to his home as his water sources for most of his 58 years. Well water is not an option for Coal Run residents as the ground water has been contaminated by the surrounding coal mines. Repeated demands for water service by Kennedy and his African-American neighbors over the years went unanswered. The other plaintiffs in the case, Fair Housing Advocates Association and the Ohio Civil Rights Commission, also received favorable verdicts. Reed Colfax, John Relman, and Jennifer Klar of Washington D.C.-based civil rights firm Relman & Dane, PLLC were lead counsel in the case. Zanesville and Muskingum County plan to appeal.

For additional details on the verdicts and the case, see Relman & Dane’s press release; Racism ruled, jury finds (Columbus Dispatch); and Jury: Black Neighborhood Was Denied Water Service (truthout).

Maps created by Cedar Grove Institute for Sustainable Communities illustrating the the racial disparities in public water access between the predominantly African- American Coal Run community and the surrounding overwhelmingly white parts of the County played an instrumental role in securing the verdicts. Look for a posting on this webpage with links to those maps soon.