Whitmer says she will bring back free water bottle delivery to Flint

[RandySF]

Governor-elect Gretchen Whitmer says she will bring back free water bottle delivery to Flint when she takes office next month.

Gov. Rick Snyder cut the state-funded program in April, citing decreasing lead levels in city tap water. In recent months, 90 percent of Flint water samples have tested at or below 6 parts per billion of lead. Under the Federal Lead and Copper Rule, the action level for lead tests is 15 ppb, while Food and Drug Administration regulations allow up to 5 ppb of lead in bottled water. However, experts warn there is no level of lead exposure that is considered safe for children.

Whitmer told Michigan Advance in an interview published Wednesday that she will reinstate the program until all lead pipes are replaced, saying:

"Well, the bottled water has to continue until the pipes are replaced. Dr. Mona [Hanna-Attisha] is someone that has been such a leader and has the confidence and trust of the people of Flint, so I’m going to work with her to make sure that the wraparound services for children are easy to navigate and are there in the robust way that they need to be. So I think that there are gonna be a lot of opportunities here. But when you look at incentives for investment, we really should be trying to make sure that our inner cities, especially ones that were so devastated by state oversight, are prioritized."



https://www.metrotimes.com/news-hits/archives/2018/12/26/whitmer-says-she-will-bring-back-free-water-bottle-delivery-to-flint?media=AMP+HTML

[bearsfootball516]

1. HOW has this not been fixed yet???

[Lithos]

2. Consider who has been in charge...

n/t

[Takket]

3. no one at the state of federal level gives a flying fuck

at least now that we have a Dem governor that doesn't want to poison minorities, things will start improving

[roamer65]

4. ...and now have a legislature stripped of redistricting power.

[MichMan]

5. Flint water is cleaner than thousands of other cities

"In recent months, 90 percent of Flint water samples have tested at or below 6 parts per billion of lead. Under the Federal Lead and Copper Rule, the action level for lead tests is 15 ppb, while Food and Drug Administration regulations allow up to 5 ppb of lead in bottled water."

[LanternWaste]

6. "Flint: We Don't Have The Dirtiest Water Anymore!!!"

Sounds like grand ad copy for a tourism project.



Your continuing narrative is most certainly on spot this week.

[MichMan]

7. Newark NJ has elevated lead levels poisoning residents

"When Newark announced it was handing out 40,000 filters to residents believed to be at risk of high lead levels in their water, it came as a surprise to some. This was in October, and for more than a year, the city had said Newark's water was “absolutely safe to drink,” while robocalls to residents assured them their water was not contaminated.

“I got dozens of robocalls,” said Shakima Thomas, a Newark resident who recently discovered that her water has almost twice the action level for lead allowed by EPA rules. “What I remember from them is ‘the water is not contaminated with lead, this is not an emergency.’”

Now, recent research by the government itself suggests Newark does indeed have a water crisis on its hands. A study commissioned by the city indicates that a change in the water chemistry at their Pequannock water treatment plant caused lead service lines to leach and contaminate the water in as many as 22,000 households’ taps, starting in early 2017. And recent tests showed close to half of 180 households monitored had dangerous levels of lead in their water.

In June, the Natural Resources Defense Council — the same organization that sued Flint, Michigan, over lead in its drinking water — sued Newark, for violating drinking water rules meant to protect residents from lead. Mayor Ras Baraka denies this.

The most recent tests in Newark show that 47.2 percent of houses tested exceed the action level for lead. The city is continuing to study the problem to find a solution. In the meantime, it has started to hand out filters to residents with lead lines and is ramping up their lead line replacement program."



https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/yw7kyb/how-newark-got-lead-in-its-water-and-what-it-means-for-the-rest-of-america

[MichMan]

8. 5,300 U.S. water systems are in violation of lead rules

"Eighteen million Americans live in communities where the water systems are in violation of the law. Moreover, the federal agency in charge of making sure those systems are safe not only knows the issues exist, but it's done very little to stop them, according to a new report and information provided to CNN by multiple sources and water experts.

"Imagine a cop sitting, watching people run stop signs, and speed at 90 miles per hour in small communities and still doing absolutely nothing about it -- knowing the people who are violating the law. And doing nothing. That's unfortunately what we have now," said Erik Olson, health program director at Natural Resources Defense Council, which analyzed the EPA's data for its report.

In this case, the "cop" is a combination of the states and the EPA. States are the first line of enforcement, but when they fail -- as they did recently in Flint, Michigan -- the EPA is supposed to step in. But in many cases, the agency hasn't.

More than 5,300 water systems in America are in violation of the EPA's lead and copper rule, a federal regulation in place to safeguard America's drinking water from its aging infrastructure.
Violations include failure to properly test water for lead, failure to report contamination to residents, and failure to treat water properly to avoid lead contamination. Yet, states took action in 817 cases; the EPA took action in just 88 cases, according to NRDC's report.

What's worse, the report reveals that the EPA is also aware that many utilities "game the system," using flawed or questionable testing methods in order to avoid detecting high levels of lead.
That means there could be many more communities violating the laws, exposing residents to dangerous levels of lead. And the public has no idea."


https://www.cnn.com/2016/06/28/us/epa-lead-in-u-s-water-systems/index.html

[MichMan]

9. Philadelphia has levels exceeding the EPA guidelines also

Experts say Philadelphia is a perfect example of the EPA unwilling to act, and having too cozy a relationship with local regulators.
The city has come under scrutiny recently for only testing less than 40 of an estimated 50,000 homes with lead service lines. City officials say that's all they could find after putting out 8,000 requests to residents. Seven homes had high lead levels.
After the Flint water crisis, the EPA in February issued new guidance instructing water authorities to stop pre-flushing taps and other practices that were considered "cheating."

A class-action lawsuit alleged that Philadelphia "tests an inordinate amount of low risk homes, diluting its testing pool and skewing the results in such a way as to paint a woefully inaccurate picture of the City's overall lead contamination."

The director of Philadelphia's water system, Gary Burlingame, said the EPA's language is merely "guidance," so it didn't have to be followed. Burlingame has been required to work with consultants who the EPA has hired on four separate occasions since 2000.
The EPA should at least "issue immediate alert to the people in Philadelphia to let people know it is very possible that the results are not reliable and that people should protect themselves," said Yanna Lambrinidou, a Virginia Tech researcher who has been advocating for a change in the city's policy.

The EPA says enforcement of Philadelphia was left to the state of Pennsylvania. The federal guidelines are only guidelines and can't be enforced. The Philadelphia Mayor's office says it will follow the EPA's new guidelines in the next round of testing -- that's in 2017.
"Meanwhile you have an entire city that hasn't been protected," Edwards said.

There are other cities like Philadelphia. Almost 97 percent of lead-related violations recorded by the EPA are for failing to properly monitor lead levels.

"I think that the basic problem is that the federal EPA and the water officials, and a lot of communities across the country are very tight. And the EPA has been very reluctant to take enforcement action against them in most cases. They're friends, they hang out with each other, they ask for each other's advice, and you get close after a while," Olson said.


https://www.cnn.com/2016/06/28/us/epa-lead-in-u-s-water-systems/index.html

[MichMan]

10. Beyond Flint: Excessive lead levels found in almost 2,000 water systems across all 50 states

"While a harsh national spotlight focuses on the drinking water crisis in Flint, Mich., a USA TODAY NETWORK investigation has identified almost 2,000 additional water systems spanning all 50 states where testing has shown excessive levels of lead contamination over the past four years.

The water systems, which reported lead levels exceeding Environmental Protection Agency standards, collectively supply water to 6 million people. About 350 of those systems provide drinking water to schools or day cares. The USA TODAY NETWORK investigation also found at least 180 of the water systems failed to notify consumers about the high lead levels as federal rules require.

Many of the highest reported lead levels were found at schools and day cares. A water sample at a Maine elementary school was 42 times higher than the EPA limit of 15 parts per billion, while a Pennsylvania preschool was 14 times higher, records show. At an elementary school in Ithaca, N.Y., one sample tested this year at a stunning 5,000 ppb of lead, the EPA’s threshold for “hazardous waste.”


https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/03/11/nearly-2000-water-systems-fail-lead-tests/81220466/

[MichMan]

11. Getting lead out of Newark's tap water? That'll take $60M, and 8 years

" Lead is measured in parts per billion; although no amount of lead in water is safe, lead concentration should not exceed the federal action level of 15 parts per billion.

The latest water sampling results from January through June show 12 percent of 115 tap water samples exceeded acceptable federal levels; the city is still collecting results through the end of June so that percentage could change. One address tested at 182 parts per billion.

Last year, 20 percent of all water samples taken across the city exceeded the federal action level, state data show. If 10 percent of samples surpass the federal action level, cities must provide additional testing, monitoring and remediation.

But the Natural Resources Defense Council, the nonprofit planning to sue the city, alleges there's no evidence the city has implemented a corrosion control plan for its source water -- something the group claims Newark was supposed to do back in 1997 and never did. Further, if the city does have a plan, it is inadequate, because it still has high lead levels, the group said in its 60-day notice of its intent to sue.

At a community meeting inside Paradise Baptist Church last month, NRDC attorneys warned residents to test their water and showed the roughly two dozen members of the audience a map illustrating areas tested for lead in the last year and a half.
The group said of the city's 240 block groups (each comprised of between 300 and 3,000 residents), only half showed they had been tested since Jan. 2017."

https://www.nj.com/essex/index.ssf/2018/06/60m_to_remove_lead_from_newarks_water.html