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At Least 33 US Cities Used Water Testing 'Cheats' Over Lead Concerns (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader writes: In an exclusive report via The Guardian, investigators found there to be at least 33 cities across 17 U.S. states that have used water testing "cheats" in an effort to cover up potentially dangerous levels of lead. The investigation was launched after the toxic water crisis in Flint, Michigan, and found that 21 of these cities used the same water testing methods that resulted in criminal charges against three government employees in Flint. Such cities include Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Detroit and Milwaukee. The Guardian reports: "The Guardian investigation concerned thousands of documents detailing water testing practices over the past decade. They include: Despite warnings of regulators and experts, water departments in at least 33 cities used testing methods over the past decade that could underestimate lead found in drinking water. Officials in two major cities -- Philadelphia and Chicago -- asked employees to test water safety in their own homes. Two states -- Michigan and New Hampshire -- advised water departments to give themselves extra time to complete tests so that if lead contamination exceeded federal limits, officials could re-sample and remove results with high lead levels. Some cities denied knowledge of the locations of lead pipes, failed to sample the required number of homes with lead plumbing of refused to release lead pipe maps, claiming it was a security risk."
Galvanized iron plumbing largely replaced lead plumbing in the early 1800s, so you would expect lead contamination to be a much bigger problem in cities east of the Mississippi.
People mock me for distilling my drinking water before I drink it. Stories like this make me feel even more justified (though the nasty sludge that my tap water leaves behind after distillation is more than enough justification as it is).
There is a large group of people who insists that pure water is going to leach minerals from your body (which is true...in amounts so trivial so to have zero impact...eat one bite of brocolli and you are good for a month). Some insist that it is acidic (which is also true...it has a ph of 5.5 to 6, which is slightly less acidic than a banana. way less acidic than apple juice or orange juice. Nearly 10,000 times less acidic than soda pop).
They have no sense of scale.
One thing the article does not mention is the reason for pre-flushing is to ensure the sample is coming from water in distribution, not water that's been sitting in the lead pipes you have in your home or your connection to the city (which is very common in older cities). While Flint performed pre-flushing, they also made sure to test around the lead sites, it's not clear that is what is happening in these 33 cities.
So, if the testers flush when collecting samples, perform the same flush before drinking tap water, that way you know you are drinking water at the levels measured. The most common objection I hear to this suggestion is "What a waste!" However, when you consider that water may not be safe to drink, you're not actually wasting drinking water. If you really are concerned about that water, you can save the water for plants and/or cleaning purposes. Watering your lawn is huge waste of water, running some water to clean pipes is not.
What people should be worried about are endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs), e.g. from birth control pills and hormones used in factory farming. To my knowledge, no city currently has the ability to test for or filter out EDCs. If the lead tests are coming back clean after flushing, that's great because it's easy to fix: just flush your lines before drinking. EDCs, not so much.
Source: I know many who work for the water department, including chemists at the testing labs at one of the 33 cities listed in the article.
Do I even have to mention Flint? State intervention and cost cutting by appointed ideological "commissars" were the direct cause of mass lead poisoning. Just because you can find some low level chump who signed off because they were "just following orders" does not change where the responsibility lies.
So the State takes over, usurps all local power and renders local democratically elected officials impotent. They have no say in how their city is run. In Flint there was no functioning local democracy, it was directly run by a Republican governor and legislature. There is only one political faction to blame.
So your whine about being unfairly accused sounds a lot like a combination of a guilty conscience and a feeble attempt to counter attack to deflect criticism.
Another interesting point: why was this reported by a British news organization, not by anyone in the US? It's not very logical that this would be missed by journalists in the US and uncovered by people in England. Any chance that the press is so corrupt and self centered they won't look into massive failure at home? I guess that it's too easy and too much fun to report about Trump rather then stir up trouble at home. That might cause someone to complain and interfere with their cosy relationships with politicians.
Why is Snark Required?