Post by Big Yogi via Columbus Dispatch

Thursday, July 10, 2008 2:50 PM
By Randy Ludlow

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

Jurors today awarded $10.9 million to 68 residents of Coal Run who were victims of racial discrimination when they were denied public water service by Muskingum County and Zanesville.

Damages ranged from $15,000 to $300,000 for each plaintiff.

The defendants in the suit were the city, county and the East Muskingum Water Authority. Attorneys for the city and county said they will appeal.

The verdict ended a near-seven-week trial before Judge Algenon L. Marbley.

Sixty-eight current and former residents of Coal Run, a low-income area east of Zanesville, filed the lawsuit with the assistance of the Fair Housing Advocates Association.

The lawsuit contended that the mostly black residents were denied public water for 50 years due to the color of their skin.

Today, some of the plaintiffs said they were very pleased with the verdict.

Freddie Martin, 70, grew up on Coal Run Road and moved away at age 32 so his children wouldn’t have to grow up the way he did.

As a child, Martin’s parents would fill the bathtub and not change the water until five of the 10 children in the family bathed in order to conserve water.

Martin was awarded $200,000.

Martin wishes his mother, who lived on Coal Run her whole life, was here to see the outcome of the lawsuit. He said he’s sure she is looking down and saying, “Well done.”

“There is a price to pay if you discriminate,” he said. “They’ve got to answer not just to the court but to God.”

Cindy Hale Harston, 47, still lives on Coal Run Road. She was also awarded $200,000.

“I’m ecstatic. It’s been a very emotional situation.” “It hurt to know they would let our neighborhood go without public water. I believe the jury found we were discriminated against.”

The Ohio Civil Rights Commission ruled in 2003 that blacks were denied public water because of discrimination by government officials. Nearby whites were served by water lines, but not blacks, it found.

The next year, water lines were extended to homes in Coal Run. Residents previously trucked in water to cisterns because wells in the area were contaminated with sulfur from abandoned coal-mine shafts.

The city and county denied discrimination, citing a lack of knowledge of residents’ complaints, jurisdictional questions over who was responsible for providing water to the area and the cost of extending water lines. Whites also remain without public water in some parts of the county, officials said.

Zanesville Mayor Butch Zwelling said he was concerned because he wasn’t sure how big the award to the plaintiffs would be.

“We would hope that the city would not draw any conclusions until appeals have been exhausted and it reaches the bottom line, which could be a few years away.
You always want the decision to go your way, but the jury has spoken. Now it’ll be up to the court of appeals,” he said.