FLINT, MI -- A federal class action lawsuit filed on behalf of Flint residents and businesses can move forward but Gov. Rick Snyder and the state of Michigan are among those dismissed as defendants.

U.S. District Judge Judith Levy issued a 128-page opinion Wednesday, Aug. 1, also dismissing former Department of Environmental Quality Director Dan Wyant, former Flint emergency manager Darnell Earley, former Mayor Dayne Walling and DHHS official Nancy Peeler from the case.

Motions to dismiss the complaint and to dismiss other defendants in the case, including the city of Flint, were granted in part and denied in part.

Michael Pitt, an attorney representing Flint residents and businesses, said the decision leaves the case "very much intact and is very much alive and well" even though the court narrowed the focus of the lawsuit.

"Class counsel have developed a multi-court approach to hold the state of Michigan, its employees, the Environmental Protection (Agency) and the engineering corporations accountable for the massive harm inflicted on the community and the children and families of Flint," Pitt wrote in an email to MLive-The Flint Journal.

Water crisis lawsuits are currently pending in seven different state and federal courts in Michigan.

Pitt said the Michigan Court of Appeals has already issued a comprehensive opinion, "guaranteeing the people of Flint their day in court so that they can receive the compensation they deserve from the state, the governor and two of the emergency managers."

Michigan courts have determined the state and the governor will be held accountable in state court and the EPA in federal court, Pitt said.

"With this ruling, the pace of the case will pick up dramatically so that there will be no further delays in getting our clients the justice they are entitled to," the attorney's statement concluded.

Ardi Adler, a spokesman for Snyder, declined to comment on the judge's ruling.

Pitt had said at the time of oral arguments last month that he expected Levy to dismiss some of the defendants initially named in the lawsuit and some of the claims he filed.

Levy's opinion said her decision was an attempt "to fairly evaluate the claims brought in this case by these (12) individuals and three businesses against these defendants."

Among the claims dismissed by the judge were equal protection claims against Snyder, former state Treasurer Andy Dillon, Genesee County Drain Commissioner Jeff Wright and others.

The basis of the claim was that Flint residents received contaminated water because of their race and because they were poor.

Snyder's attorney Richard Kauhl said during oral arguments July 11 that the governor should be dismissed from the case in part because he relied on the DEQ's false assurances about Flint water.

Emergency managers appointed by Snyder changed the city's water source to the Flint River in April 2014, triggering the Flint water crisis.

Despite problems with bacteria, elevated levels of total trihalomethanes, sharp increases in the level of lead in water and suspicions that Flint water was connected to outbreaks of Legionnaires' disease, Flint residents continued to receive river water until October 2015.