Riviera Beach is settling a lawsuit after a man claims the city’s water was contaminated with E. coli and created gastrointestinal diseases, according to records WPTV received from a public records request.
This settlement is the first time it’s been publicly reported that the city paid an individual private citizen for drinking contaminated city water. However, the city only paid $5,000 and didn’t have to pay the man’s attorney fees to stop the case from going to trial, along with any other additional proceedings like depositions.
The city is still fighting fines from the Florida Department of Health in Palm Beach collectively worth more than $1.2 million, after the state investigated the city’s water utility for 189 different violations, of which the state agency found evidence to assess the city utility with 155 violations…