Don't drink the water

[glatt]

Washington D.C. had quite a scandal in the last year with extremely high levels of lead in the water. The biggest kicker, and the thing that made it a scandal was that the water company kept the test results quiet. There were numerous stories of kids and pregnant women drinking the tap water, without any knowledge it was unsafe. It was pretty scary for a while, since in Arlington, I get my water from D.C., and my house is old. We thought there was a fair chance we might have lead in our water. I got several test kits on the internet, and did many tests before I calmed down and saw that my water was safe.

Well, in an article in today's Washington Post, a review of several other cities shows that this isn't a problem in just D.C.

If you live in an older, East Coast city, you can't be sure that your water is safe. Several cities, including Philadelphia, Boston, and New York, routinely throw out test results that show high levels of lead in the water. They only report the low test scores to the EPA. They give a false sense of security to their customers when they claim that their lead levels are within EPA limits.

You can buy test kits online for about $10-20 a kit. It's what I did. If you have young children in your home, or are pregnant, you may consider it too.

The Post article requires filling out a form and registering for free, so here's the first third or so of it:

Lead Levels in Water Misrepresented Across U.S.
Utilities Manipulate or Withhold Test Results to Ward Off Regulators
By Carol D. Leonnig, Jo Becker and David Nakamura
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, October 5, 2004; Page A01


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.

In some cases, state regulators have helped the utilities avoid costly fixes. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which is supposed to ensure that states are monitoring utilities, has also let communities ignore requirements to reduce lead. In 2003, records show, the EPA ordered utilities to remedy violations in just 14 cases, less than one-tenth of the number ordered in 1997.

Taken together, the records point to a national problem just months after disclosures that lead levels in the District's water are among the highest in the country, a problem the city's utility concealed for months. Documents from other cities show that many have made similar efforts to hide high lead readings, taking advantage of lax national and state oversight and regulations riddled with loopholes.

The Washington Post examined 65 large water systems whose reported lead levels have hovered near or exceeded federal standards. Federal, state and utility records show that dozens of utilities obscured the extent of lead contamination, ignored requirements to correct problems and failed to turn over data to regulators.