Although Flint, Mich., switched water sources six months ago, lead contamination of city tap water persists, researchers say, largely because residents are not using the poisonous water enough. “But we need to get more water running through the system”. “This investigation revealed that many Flint residents are using very little water”, Edwards said.
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Documents released in February show state officials knew about the Legionnaires’ outbreak and its suspected link to water system problems in Flint at least 10 months before a public announcement was made. Instead of adding corrosion controls, at a cost of $150 per day, the state said the city should instead do two water quality studies before adding the anti-corrosion chemicals.
Virginia Tech worked with city officials in 2015 to demonstrate Flint’s water was contaminated by lead after the city switched the water supply in 2014 from Detroit’s system to the Flint River. In Flint and other American cities where lead has been used for water pipes, the toxic metal can contaminate the water, exposing people who drink from the tap to a range of health problems – including irreversible IQ loss in children.
Edwards’ team studied homes with persistently high lead levels and discovered water use as low as 20 percent of typical usage. “The system is definitely on its path to recovery”, Marc Edwards, the Virginia Tech professor whose work helped bring Flint’s water crisis to light, told reporters. The federal EPA and the state of MI are in desperate need of a cover following the exposure of their criminal role in allowing the poisoning of an entire city with lead-tainted water. “They are upset. I know there is anger and mistrust”.
“Virtually all homes in Flint must be considered at risk, at the present time, for elevated lead in water”, according to the study, unless homeowners were certain there was no lead plumbing in the home. Although state officials have discussed making $30 million available for residents’ water bills over the past months, and this would only involve drinking water as opposed to water for sewerage, so far nothing has been done. Residents should be bathing with it and should not feel unsafe doing so.
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“In one way or another everyone is involved in this, helping out in some way because of the impact it’s had on the community”, he said. On Tuesday, Edwards said his team’s samples showed that the corrosion controls were working – that they were successfully rebuilding the interior coating that services as a barrier between water and the pipe surface.
