In January 2015, officials in Flint Michigan decided to pull water from the Flint River instead of the Detroit Water System. I’m sure you can guess why. To cut costs.
And that’s about the same time families in Flint started experiencing serious health conditions.
Despite these illnesses, city officials insisted that Flint’s tap water was safe to drink. After a lot of pressure, they finally agreed to do testing, and the results were damning. The tap water contained lead. And not just a small amount. NEARLY 27 TIMES the legal limit!
Many kids in Flint tested positive for lead, including LEAD POISONING. But, still, the city insisted there was no problem.
Eventually, the EPA found that the city wasn’t applying the proper corrosion controls to the tap water and, as a result, lead from the city pipes was leaching directly into the water system for the entire city. A lead contamination expert ran tests on the tap water in more than 250 Flint homes and found lead contamination almost 900 TIMES the safe level.
Flint became a full-blown national scandal and criminal charges were filed against Michigan and Flint city officials. But the thing that matters most, making sure Flint has safe drinking water, is still just a dream. Even today, the water in Flint is STILL unsafe to drink. The EPA estimates it will cost $2 billion to restore clean water to Flint, almost 70% of the EPA’s ENTIRE water infrastructure budget... so, you can see how how high costs and limited budgets are impacting our nation’s water supply.
You might think that Flint, Michigan, was a rare, once in a lifetime disaster. Regrettably that’s not true. In May 2016, USA Today reported excessive lead levels across all 50 states.
How can that be? Because, according to the EPA’s Safe Water Drinking Act, municipal water systems only need to test their water for lead once every 4 years. So, unless you have a “dirty water detector”, these dangers can continue for years… unchecked!