Source: http://www.wsws.org, January 26, 2016
By: Nick Barrickman
In the context of reports of the poisoning of residents of Flint, Michigan due to lead contamination in the city’s water supply, recent studies have shown lead contamination to be a widespread problem in cities and towns throughout the United States. The populations of major cities such as New Orleans, Baltimore, Boston and Detroit are exposed to elevated levels of lead contamination in their homes, soil and water supply.
Any number of cities and municipalities could be the next site of a massive public health disaster after years of deindustrialization, budget cuts at the local and federal level and the decay of infrastructure “Every major US city east of the Mississippi” faces the danger of coming in contact with a harmful dose of the substance, according to a source quoted in the British Guardian over the weekend. “The logical conclusion is that millions of people’s drinking water is potentially unsafe,” they added.
The danger of lead exposure is widespread across the US.

•  In Baltimore, the number of children suffering from lead poisoning was three times the national average, or 65,000 children from 1993 until 2013, according to a study conducted by the state of Maryland. The cause is traced to peeling lead-based paint in the city’s aging housing stock.
•  In Louisiana, children in Caddo, Claiborne, Ouachita and Jefferson Parishes had lead poisoning levels higher than 10 percent, with children in Claiborne Parish registering as high as 40 percent, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
•  In Pittsburgh, water authorities announced last week they would switch their treatment chemical from caustic soda to ash soda, in an attempt to raise the water’s pH levels to prevent the corrosion and leaching of lead from piping that occurred in Flint. According to a report in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, lead in the city’s water supply has risen from two parts per billion in 1999 to 14.7 in 2013. The Environmental Protection Agency’s action level is 15 parts per billion.
• In Boston, almost 5,000 children were found to have elevated levels of lead in their blood.
• Houston County, Alabama reported the highest incident of lead poisoning among children in the US. Of 12 children tested in 2014, seven came back positive for exposure to lead.

Working class and poor communities in particular face the consequences of the negligence and ruthlessness of chemical polluters. A 2014 report sponsored by the Ford Foundation and the John Merck Fund reveals that “more than 134 million Americans live in the danger zones around 3,433 facilities in several common industries that store or use highly hazardous chemicals.”
Lead was banned from usage in paint in 1978 and from car fuel in 1996 due to the adverse effects the metal has when ingested by the human body. Children with lead in their blood are prone to having lowered IQs, behavioral problems, seizures, impaired hearing and, in extreme cases, coma and death. High levels of lead exposure have been tied to the rise of crime and social dysfunction.
In 2012, the CDC cut by half the “acceptable” amount of lead particles in a child’s blood from 10 micrograms per deciliter to five parts, stating there was no acceptable level for the chemical in the human body whatsoever. Despite this, authorities in the US and globally have refused to lift a finger to put in place essential safety measures.
Demonstrating that the problem is international in scope, a report in the Irish Times addressed cases of lead poisonings in Dublin last year. “Tens of thousands of householders may, unknowingly, be poisoning their families because of lead contamination in their drinking water. The number may be greater and the threat to public health more insidious. But the relevant authorities have been reluctant… to provide… remedial programmes. It all comes down to money.”
The paper went on to indict the government for refusing to take responsibility for aiding homeowners in replacing lead piping on their properties and for failing to adequately alert the public to the risks.
As in Flint, where officials manipulated lead tests in home faucets, a recent report in the Guardian reveals a widespread conspiracy by public officials at the state, local and federal levels to hide the extent of lead contamination in water. The paper quotes Yanna Lambrinidou, a Virginia Tech professor and EPA task force member on hazardous waste contamination, at length.
“There is no way that Flint is a one-off… There are many ways to game the system. In Flint, they went to test neighbourhoods where they knew didn’t have a problem. You can also flush the water to get rid of the lead. If you flush it before sampling, the problem will go away.
“The EPA has completely turned its gaze away from this. There is no robust oversight here, the only oversight is from the people getting hurt. Families who get hurt, such as in Flint, are the overseers. It’s a horrendous situation. The system is absolutely failing.”
The Guardian notes that Detroit, Philadelphia and the state of Rhode Island, among others, have used such methods to understate the real amount of lead being ingested by the public.
According to the Guardian, Paul Schwartz, national policy coordinator of Water Alliance, who assisted Lambrinidou during the task force, said that water regulation was totally inadequate.
“The industry’s own reports show that if large water utilities followed the EPA standard for sampling, they would routinely exceed the lead limit,” he said. “The EPA has been in a very cozy relationship with the state regulators and the water utilities. They’ve allowed themselves to be captured and they haven’t followed the science.”
“What we have is a recipe for a public health disaster that is much larger than what we’ve seen so far. It will take us years to get out of this situation.”
The EPA has not responded to the Guardian revelations. Susan Hedman, the EPA director for the state of Michigan, resigned last week in the wake of revelations that she suppressed warnings of elevated levels of lead in the Flint water supply by a lower ranking EPA official.