But when a city employee tested two samples of water from Walters's home, one had lead concentrations six times higher than the 15 ppb “action” level, at 104 ppb the other was 25 times higher at 397 ppb. Officials at the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) insisted that lead levels in Flint's water were below thresholds. And to make sure problems are caught, sampling for lead in water is supposed to target the “worst-case” homes – those in areas served by lead pipes. If this is exceeded in more than 10% of homes tested (or if the 90th percentile value of the total sample is above 15 ppb), action is required. While there is no completely safe amount of lead consumption, the limit allowed by the Lead and Copper Rule (LCR) of 1991 is 15 parts per billion (ppb). They also regularly monitor levels of lead in water from a sample of homes. Lead is still widespread in the USA's ageing infrastructure, so water companies routinely add chemicals to water to prevent pipes from corroding and leaching lead into drinking water. The orange colour was from iron, but the family's symptoms pointed to a far more dangerous contaminant: lead. More worryingly, her family's hair was falling out, her preschool sons had broken out in rashes and one of them had stopped growing. Not long after, problems arose.įlint resident and mother of four LeeAnne Walters noticed that the water coming out of her taps was orange. The Flint River supply was switched on in April 2014. The move was expected to save roughly $5 million over a period of two years. Instead, Flint would use the Flint River for its water supply while waiting for a new pipeline to Lake Huron to be opened. One of the cost-cutting measures taken by emergency managers was to stop buying water, sourced from Lake Huron, from the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department. Sick cityįlint is the second poorest city of its size in the United States and has spent six of the past 15 years in a state of financial emergency. It also illustrates how citizens and scientists can work together to help right wrongs. The story of the Flint crisis offers a cautionary tale of how flawed and inadequate testing creates misleading data.
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