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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums6 cities in Michigan have higher levels of lead than Flint (!!!)
As the nation rightly focuses on Flints ongoing water crisis, other cities in the state of Michigan face even higher levels of lead contamination. The alarming pervasiveness of potentially toxic drinking water extends across the United States.
The Detroit News reports that Elevated blood-lead levels are seen in a higher percentage of children in parts of Grand Rapids, Jackson, Detroit, Saginaw, Muskegon, Holland and several other cities, proof that the scourge of lead has not been eradicated despite decades of public health campaigns and hundreds of millions of dollars spent to find and eliminate it.
Of over 7,000 children tested in the Highland Park and Hamtramck areas of Detroit in 2014, 13.5 percent tested positive for lead. Among four zip codes in Grand Rapids, one in ten children had lead in their blood. In Adrian and south-central Michigan, more than 12 percent of 640 children tested had positive results.
These overall numbers are higher than Flints, where Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha found lead in up to 6.3 percent of children in the highest-risk areas; while The Guardian reported Dr. Hanna-Attisha has also said the rate is as high at 15 percent in certain hot spots, the size of those samples was not listed. Even so, the overall figures across Michigan are lower than in previous years. In 2012, children tested across Michigan had lead in their blood at a rate of 4.5 percent, about five times less than the rate ten years prior, which reached an alarming 25 percent. In spite of the decrease in recent years, however, thousands of children in Michigan are still affected.
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http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-01-29/6-cities-michigan-have-even-higher-levels-lead-flint
Sebring, Ohio too
http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/28/us/sebring-lead-levels-ohio-epa/
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Yet the nation's citizens -- including children -- are left to rot.
Holly_Hobby
(3,033 posts)Octafish
(55,745 posts)For me, I trace a line straight back to Dallas Texas on Nov. 22, 1963 to the very present day.
The USA makes war and kills millions based on lies. And no one goes to jail.
Same USA allows a major city -- and now it looks like CITIES -- to be poisoned. We're waiting, but no one is in jail.
Enough already. These are evil people. And without justice, they continue to get away with murder. Time for them to be held to account. Time for them to be locked up, where they can't hurt us, the Constitution, democracy, the planet or humanity any more.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)may be a turnaround point. I'd concentrate on the duty of officials to fulfill their duties properly, though. Leave humanity and the cosmos for the 2020s maybe?
tblue37
(64,982 posts)railroad tracks, nor do they even *recognize* their own evil. Instead, they pride themselves on their success in amassing power and using a rigged bureaucracy to enrich themselves and their cronies, regardless of the suffering their actions visit upon the vulnerable and innocent, regardless of the irreversible destruction they visit upon society and upon the environment. They are like sharks in that they have to keep moving, but their movement is always maximally destructive to everyone and everything else.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)Amorality at its "finest."
niyad
(112,435 posts)levels.
Holly_Hobby
(3,033 posts)What an epic failure.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)That's why the IQs are down.
No one gets off the sofa.
No one can pull away from teh tee vee.
Because they can't.
hfojvt
(37,573 posts)from where they were in the bad old days of the 1960s and 1970s.
13.5%? If they are talking about 5 mg/L that percentage used to be 88%.
niyad
(112,435 posts)hfojvt
(37,573 posts)Or am I simply closing my eyes to a problem I do not wish to acknowledge or I am simply not aware of the calibre of disaster indicated by the presence of a single lead atom in our entire universe. When the rabble rouser says jump, I am supposed to say "give me some band instruments".
Recursion
(56,582 posts)And we really, really don't want to move back in that direction.
Rex
(65,616 posts)And the voices that are silent on this, kinda obvious where their loyalties are. NOT with the planet or humanity.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)These assklowns seem to forget that both tumbrels and guillotines are quite easy to build.
ancianita
(35,813 posts)This is a national health crisis. Flint and these six cities are only the tip of the infrastructure iceberg. The easiest spending decisions and way to re-election for politicians would be to promote lead pipe removal in their cities and states.
Holly_Hobby
(3,033 posts)ancianita
(35,813 posts)I know you're kidding but seriously, think of the interests of the military in helping with this. To keep their base people healthy through donating to water line replacement would be a cheap benefit compared to the costs of bad health of their personnel.
Holly_Hobby
(3,033 posts)There are answers, but great ideas like that will never happen. I feel hopeless.
ancianita
(35,813 posts)directing tax spending toward domestic infrastructure renewal.
Don't be hopeless. A country as big as this is bound to have big problems, but we're also a big population that can direct national thinking, long term, toward our benefit.
Holly_Hobby
(3,033 posts)I really try and not let it get the best of me, but some days are much worse than others. Like today.
I saw on the nightly news last night that Flint residents also have sores that won't heal because of this. I feel their pain, I really do.
I live in Toledo, Ohio. In August of 2014, our drinking water was poisoned by algae in Lake Erie from farm phosphorus run off. It won't be the last time, either. We were lucky and had a mild summer in 2015. I have 2 more years before I can fully retire and try to go somewhere else where the water is better, but I think about all the people who can't get out because they just can't afford it.
1939
(1,683 posts)you need to add phosphates to the water to keep the lead from leaching out of the pipes and solder joints.
ancianita
(35,813 posts)consider the Chicago side of the Great Lakes, the fifth largest body of fresh water on the planet. Not that our leaders are clean, but the water is pretty clean.
You can't do the people who can't get out any good by staying there.
Please take care. Keep the faith.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)precious money.
glinda
(14,807 posts)and is getting push back from Republicans of course. They want to divert more to "roads".
Holly_Hobby
(3,033 posts)give it to the residents for moving expenses. Put up a "Closed" sign.
I think GM needs to pitch in a few dollars too, after all, they poisoned the Flint river with their 7 plants over the past century.
1939
(1,683 posts)The problem is the lead in the pipes and solder joints in both the older city piping and in the older homes.
The water is probably safe after it comes out of the purification process and you actually have to "pollute" it with phosphates so that the lead in the piping doesn't dissolve into the water stream. The nasty color to the water is the iron rust coming off the iron pipes.
The real solution is to replace the transmission lines from the water plant to the individual building service junctions, replace the lines from the meter to the house, and in many case replace the interior plumbing of the house.
ancianita
(35,813 posts)glinda
(14,807 posts)KamaAina
(78,249 posts)Both Highland Park and Hamtramck are separate cities that are surrounded by Detroit.
1939
(1,683 posts)hfojvt
(37,573 posts)"had lead in their blood"
What is that supposed to mean? Anybody with 0.01 micro grams per liter has "lead in their blood". But not enough to rend your garments over.
"Dr. Mona ... found lead ..."
At what level? Because there's kind of a huge difference between 0.2 and 2 and 12.
Although if somebody is dishonest they could hype 0.2 (or 2) and start screaming "omigod, it's lead. it's lead. Run away from Galena, the sky is falling!!!1!!"
pnwmom
(108,925 posts)So it is significant.
hfojvt
(37,573 posts)but not necessarily the end of the world.
After all, back in the 1960s and 1970s, the lead levels were much higher.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10027561284
Notice how they state this
"Though no amount is considered safe, 5 micrograms is the threshold that experts say constitutes a much higher level than most children."
that is really an arbitrary threshold, created by the success of lead abatement.
After they raise the bar, in twenty years people can start freaking out about children tested at 2.
Because "no amount is considered safe". Yeah, even though millions of us once had a level of 10 and are now in our fifties and sixties. Seems to me there is a lot of fear-mongering on this.
Crepuscular
(1,057 posts)found in the kids in Flint, while certainly concerning, are not unprecedented. When Dr. Mona analysed the MDH lead/blood data and sorted it by zip code, she found that the percentage of kids with elevated lead levels was showing an increasing trend during the time period that water from the Flint River was being used, when compared to a 20 month period immediately prior to the switch. Here results are accurate for the specific period included in the analysis. What is also true, though, is that during that 20 month period which was used for comparison, the number of kids found with elevated lead levels was at an all time low for those Flint Neighborhoods. If you look at the data over a longer term, it provides some context, in terms of the scope of this situation.
The Flint River was used as the primary source of water from April of 2014 to November of 2015. Here is the data for the number of kids under 18 with elevated lead blood levels in the 2 Flint zip codes highlighted by Dr. Mona's analysis, from 2010 - November of 2015, per MDH.
2010 - 242
2011 - 195
2012 - 139
2013 - 99
2014 - 127
2015* - 147 (2015 results thru 12/18)
The elevated levels in some but certainly not all of the 127 kids in 2014 and 147 kids in 2015 can be attributed to the lack of corrosion control that occurred when the water source was switched to the Flint River as the primary source. Again, a tragic, unnecessary consequence but in the historical context of recent years in Flint, not unprecedented.
Rex
(65,616 posts)Ever think about someone but yourself for once in your life?
Festivito
(13,452 posts)What we lack in TRANSPARENCY in government.
marmar
(76,985 posts)They're independent cities surrounded by Detroit.
dumbcat
(2,120 posts)in the four paragraphs presented, only the first, introductory paragraph mentions water. None of the next three paragraphs containing data contain the word "water."
Recursion
(56,582 posts)Air is still a bigger culprit overall