I don't know if I am in the right aream but am hoping that
someone could give me some assistance.
I live in Arizona in an unicorporated area. We have a
private water and sewgae company. This compnay recently had
a major raw sewage spill of over 10,000 gallons, which
eruopted into peoples back yards, in the community streets,
etc. This is not the first time this has happened. A little
girl contatced ecoli due to the last spill. The city East
of us was looking into purchasing this water compnay but
they backed out (they paid over $300,000.00 of tax payers
money for the investigative study) the local newspaper sked
to see the report but the town and the water company said
no. The newspapr had to take it to court as this report
being paid with by tax paeyers money should be public
knowledge. The newspaper one and the court ordered the
report to be released to the public. Well the report was
not good, as the nitrate levels are well above the Federal
guidelinds, it also showed above limits of fecal matter in
the drinking water as well as Copper. Well the community
held a rally when the water company was putting on a
customer appreciation, two women were served with a summons
to appear in court. The water company said they said libel
things against the company. All they did was organize the
rally, made some signs with picutres of water bottles and
posted on the bottles were the EPA report, along with that
they put tootsie rools in the water. These are very good
friends of mine, as well as members of the community who
has to drink this water,and the one lady had 2" of fecal
contaminated water in her back yard. It was all over the
news and in the papers here.
My question is, do these two fine ladies have anything to
worry about. How can it be libel if what they said was true
as all they did was repeat what the EPA reports said. I
thank you in advance for your attention to this post.