The New Orleans Sewerage & Water Board’s woes are headed to court.

A group of activists, joined by an historic Treme church and two frustrated residents, sued Monday (Oct. 16) to attempt to force the public agency to divulge any future drainage problems in real time.

The lawsuit accuses the utility of failing to properly notify customers about the condition of its drainage pumps and power supply, in violation of residents’ rights to due process.

“The city and the Sewerage & Water Board have a responsibility to keep the city dry during storms, and we have a due process right to expect that from the city,” said Malcolm Suber, organizer of the New Orleans People’s Assembly. “And the city has hidden for years the conditions of our system and lied and covered up when things do go wrong.”

The lawsuit doesn’t ask for damages, although Suber said groundwork was being laid for a future class-action lawsuit. Instead, the filing in Orleans Civil District Court demands the Sewerage & Water Board disclose specific information about its drainage pumping capacity.

The Sewerage & Water Board wouldn’t comment Monday, citing the pending litigation.

The lawsuit calls for reports on the condition of drainage pumps and power supply every 12 hours and immediate announcements when pumps or electricity-generating turbines go down. It pushes for the Sewerage & Water Board to provide a method by which customers can monitor the status of New Orleans water, sewerage and drainage systems in real time.

It also called for better oversight, including court monitoring.

The lawsuit was spurred by freak summer floods in July and August that caught residents off guard. The Sewerage & Water Board later disclosed that as many as 17 pumps weren’t working at one point and that only two turbines out of five were functioning at its Carrollton power plant.

The utility’s failure to openly describe its fragile condition denied residents their chance to take precautions before the water began to rise, said attorney Davida Finger, who is representing the assembly, the Sixth Union Baptist Church, Antranette Scott and Latasia Williams.

The church, at 2016 Orleans Ave., took in 4 feet of water in July, according to the lawsuit. Scott lost her Toyota Matrix and Williams was evicted from her rental home on St. Bernard Avenue as a result of the Aug. 5 flood.

Accountability and transparency are the lawsuit’s main goals, Finger said.

“We haven’t asked for damages in any form,” she said. “We’re only asking for due process.”