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So the big, big, big story on the front page of this morning's Washington Post was by Carol Leonnig, who obtained a copy of a forthcoming study that shows that hundreds of District children had dangerously high levels of lead in their blood during the WASA lead crisis earlier this decade.
The study, based on a detailed analysis of thousands of children’s blood tests from 2000 to 2003, contradicts the public assurances issued by federal and D.C. health officials starting in 2004. At the time, although officials acknowledged that the amount of lead in city water were at record-breaking levels, they said repeatedly that they found no measurable impact on the general public’s health.This is seriously scary shit, especially for parents and pregnant women living in older homes in the neighborhoods identified as being the most affected: Mount Pleasant and Columbia Heights, the southeastern portion of Capitol Hill, a large swath of Ward 4 along Georgia Avenue, and Northeast Washington's Langdon Park.
In a WaPo live chat today, one of the authors of the study, professor Marc Edwards of Virginia Tech, answered the questions of freaked out District parents. The most chilling question and response had to do with the reality of our water quality today.
Washington, D.C. : A personal question - if you lived in one of the "high risk" neighborhoods identified, even now that the problem has been supposedly remedied, would you drink bottled water? Purified water? What precautions would you take?Thanks for doing this chat.
Marc Edwards: If I lived in D.C., and I lived in a home built before 1987, I would not allow my children (younger than age 6) to drink unfiltered tap water (or use it for cooked food or drinks).
If you have allowed your young children to drink DC water, the chance of significant problems is very small, but it is not non-existent. We do know that even in very recent testing, a significant percentage of children in D.C. with elevated blood lead have water that tests above 15 ppb. That does not "prove" that water is the major source. But it is still a problem that should concern you.
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"unfiltered" tap water...i live in dc, and i use a brita, but come on. does brita REALLY get out this lead? i mean..REALLY?
damn right this is scary shit, sommer. if someone wanted to use this as a reason to get the hell out of dodge and raise children elsewhere, i wouldn't fault them for it.
it's pure bullshit that this stuff isn't handled with more urgency. we're talking about clear health concerns!
rest easy hungeegirl, this is just what britas are for, keep the filter replaced and you should be OK
everyone should put a secondary filter system in their household, rather than blindly trusting what comes from the tap.
http://www.lead.org.au/lanv5n3/lan5n3-14.html
This is extraordinarily maddening. Yet another instance of regulatory/public health failure, and as best I can tell, there's just a lot of "what? not my job." reaction in the story. I hope there's a follow up investigative piece that will pin down exactly where the bad decisions were made.
A follow-up investigative piece? I'm hoping for a massive, crippling class action suit that finally brings WASA to heel.
Their arrogance, incompetence, and disregard for public safety are all well-documented. Here's one of many examples - have you ever seen what passes for our sewer overflow system? It was state-of-the-art ca. 1890:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rock_creek/260040598/
This is in spite of a 1999 settlement in which WASA admitted to allowing 2 BILLION gallons of sewage and untreated stormwater to flow into the Anacostia through antiquated storm sewers, and promised improvements.
Only a savage, resounding legal junk-punch is going to solve this problem.
These projects are major works. NYC started construction on their CSO mitigation project in 1999, and it's not slated to be done until 2012.
They should get the lead out and actually fix this, so they can get the lead out (which would in turn fix this).
I think.
I have a feeling that we are going to see a lot more reports on how absolute dire "so and so's" infrastructure is and how dead babies will litter the street if they don't get money..*cough* stimulus *cough* soon.
We live in Mt.P. and I was pregnant in 2002. My child has consistently tested below the limits of detection. I even had myself tested just for reassurance and I too was below the limit of detection. We have always cooked with water through a faucet mounted Pur filter (similar to Brita but more functional for a family). We also eat a diet rich in iron, calcium/magnesium and vitamin C which are all important in combating lead and other environmental toxins. We are also well educated English speaking and reading household. We are fortunate and I honestly thank God for this everyday when I see my bright little ones. There are so many people in the neighborhood who are not well educated, don't speak or read much English. They either never got the messages to filter water or did not understand it. Unfortunately I bet even money that those are the children testing with elevated lead blood levels. The areas that saw the biggest spikes are ones with large pockets of Latin and poor African American families. Some of my neighbors never took the issue seriously and thought that we were crazy yuppies for getting upset back when the story broke in late 2003.
I personally hold Jerry Johnson responsible. My hope is that he will go to prison and not the country club type for what he has overseen done to a generation of DC children. He would not have been able to perpetrate his cover up without the explicit consent of the Bush appointees at the EPA.
Just goes to show not all the criminals in DC loiter on streetcorners in poopy pants. This is exactly why DC residents shouldn't have guns. Otherwise, the good people at WASA might become victims of another type of "lead poisoning."
It makes sense (in an alternate reality) for the city to fund a under the sink style reverse osmosis filter system for every household who doesn't have one- at least in the interim as we work towards replacing every "leady" pipe in the city (read: never). They cost about $180 or so, and are easy to install. That dollar amount multiplied by the population of DC comes out to (lets see... carry the 0) about $90M. Roughly the price of a decent Citibank executive jet, give or take a few.
Maybe we could sell the 14th St bridge?
I'd stare at a Citibank ad every day if it meant clean water. I'm with RJ, throw that stimulus money our way.