Is there lead in YOUR drinking water?
by Guest Blogger, 10/5/2004
A stunning Washington Post exposé reveals that the nation's capital is not alone in hiding from the public the news that unsafe levels of lead are in the drinking water:
Cities across the country are manipulating the results of tests used to detect lead in water, violating federal law and putting millions of Americans at risk of drinking more of the contaminant than their suppliers are reporting.
Some cities, including Philadelphia and Boston, have thrown out tests that show high readings or have avoided testing homes most likely to have lead, records show. In New York City, the nation's largest water provider has for the past three years assured its 9.3 million customers that its water was safe because the lead content fell below federal limits. But the city has withheld from regulators hundreds of test results that would have raised lead levels above the safety standard in two of those years, according to records.
The result is that communities large and small may have a false sense of security about the quality of their water and that utilities can avoid spending money to correct the problem.
The utilities themselves are only part of the problem. The Post reveals that state regulators have been helping the utilities to manipulate water testing and otherwise avoid the duty to remove lead-laden pipes. The EPA, charged with the task of supervising state regulators in ensuring clean, safe drinking water, has been lax, the Post reveals.
Among the manipulations:
- Dropping high test results from the average by failing to report them to state regulators
- Dropping high test results with the agreement of state regulators -- but for reasons not allowed by federal law
- Disregarding the legal requirement to test homes with high risk of lead corrosion
- Diluting the average by testing more homes than needed, including suburban homes less likely to result in high lead results
