Lifestyle

Flint Crisis Is Example of Scandalous Water Dangers Around U.S.

February 09, 2016, 11:57 AM

Featured_flint_20158

The Flint water crisis barely got notice in the beginning when the Curt Guyette, an investigative reporter for the American Civil Liberties Union, started exposing the problem last summer. Eventually, the mainstream press jumped in and then famous folks like Cher and Michael Moore started making provocative comments.

Now, the problem around the country is getting national attention, and there are plenty examples of government failing to warn residents of contaminated water in a timely manner. Sounds familiar.

The New York Times on Tuesday has a front-page story headlined: "Holes in Safety Net Let Contaminants in Water." Michael Wines and John Schwartz report:

In Sebring, Ohio, routine laboratory tests last August found unsafe levels of lead in the town’s drinking water after workers stopped adding a chemical to keep lead water pipes from corroding. Five months passed before the city told pregnant women and children not to drink the water, and shut down taps and fountains in schools.

In 2001, after Washington, D.C., changed how it disinfected drinking water, lead in tap water at thousands of homes spiked as much as 20 times the federally approved level. Residents did not find out for three years. When they did, officials ripped out lead water pipes feeding 17,600 homes — and discovered three years later that many of the repairs had only prolonged the contamination.

The crisis in Flint, Mich., where as many as 8,000 children under age 6 were exposed to unsafe levels of lead after a budget-cutting decision to switch drinking-water sources, may be the most serious contamination threat facing the country’s water supplies. But it is hardly the only one.

The paper goes on to say unsafe lead levels in tap water surfaced in Durham and Greenville, N.C. in 2006; In Columbia, S.C. in 2005; and last July in Jackson, Miss., where officials took six months to disclose the contamination.


Read more:  The New York Times


Leave a Comment:

Photo Of The Day