I am certain many have become concerned with the D.C. metropolitan area water supply. Last year, studies revealed an array of pharmaceuticals, including mood stabilizers, sex hormones, antibiotics, and anticonvulsants, along with contaminants and bacteria, polluted water supply in both Virginia and the District. Of course, public health officials claimed the amount of water pollutants were too small to cause any harm to those who consumed tap water. Yet, those who had the means to buy either bottled water or a reverse osmosis filtration system, ran to the stores quicker than Flash Gordon.

This news, although sickening and frightening, is not as alarming as most recent news concerning the District’s water supply.  The Washington Post has revealed a new study, which claims 42,000 D.C. children potentially could face severe lead toxicity from high lead levels in the District’s water supply.

Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, many toddlers and infants affected primarily live in underserved communities: Mount Pleasant and Columbia Heights, the southeastern portion of Capitol Hill, a huge swath of Ward 4 along Georgia Avenue, and Northeast Washington’s Langdon Park. According to a Post analysis in 2003 and 2004, these areas had the highest lead levels during the tap water crisis, especially since these residents relied heavily on lead pipes. Toddlers and infants residing in these areas have blood-lead concentrations that can cause irreversible IQ loss and developmental delays.

The study, conducted by researchers at Virginia Tech and the Children’s National Medical Center, raises concern about 42,000 D.C children, now ages 4 to 9, who were either in the womb or younger than 2 during the lead water crisis. These children may be at risk for health and behavioral problems linked to lead poisoning, the study reveals.

Of course, the federal government and public health officials swept the problem under the rug, reassuring D.C. residents the lead content was not high enough to cause any damage. However, the study conducted by Virginia Tech and the Children’s National Medical Center, based on detailed analyses of thousands of children’s blood tests from 2000 to 2003, proves the  government wrong. Surprised?

Public health officials tried to release themselves of blame during several statements and reports this week, according to the Post. These statements and reports claim the city’s health officials were not disregarding the District’s lead water crisis, but instead, did not possess enough data to categorize the lead content as being harmful to D.C. residents’ health and therefore, could not pursue the problem any further.

However, it may be safe to say the government officials may not have wanted to pursue the issue further because they may have been exposed as being at the center of the lead water crisis, especially since lead concentrations increased in 2001, after a new chemical was added to the water treatment or "purification” process of the District's water supply. Coincidentally, the lead concentrations lessened once the Post illuminated the public of this crisis during a February 2004 article. Furthermore, if city health officials probed further, that would entail too much extensive work— and we know how government officials hate to have their coffee breaks interrupted.

When conducting its research, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) relied on a broad, citywide test concerning both children and adults. Yet, had an extensive study specifically been performed on children rather than adults, CDC would have discovered exactly how damaging the lead content in the District’s water was. Lead affects adults and children, differently. Children are more easily affected by lead than adults because the ingestion or absorption of lead is greater with children, due to less body weight when compared to adults. The new test conducted by Virginia Tech and the Children's National Medical Center targets specifically children, since they are more vulnerable to lead poisoning, and focuses on neighborhoods who are more susceptible to higher lead levels in water, due to pipeline systems made of lead.

Let the blame game begin

"Residents with high lead levels in their tap water did not have elevated blood lead levels, " the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency stated in its one fact sheet, citing the 2004 CDC report.

David Bellinger, a neurologist at Harvard University, who studies the effects of lead and other toxic exposures concerning children, told the Post he is completely at awe when regarding the number of young children with unsafe blood-lead levels, with many doubling in some targeted neighborhoods during the lead crisis.

"That's a big increase, and even the lower increase for kids with moderate risk is reason for worry," Bellinger said. "Compared to other kids in the U.S., these kids [in D.C.] were getting exposed to a lot more lead than other preschoolers."

According to Bellinger in his interview with the Post, if CDC was so limited in the amount of information obtained, researchers should have not made “sweeping” conclusions that no problem exists. Bellinger said this type of behavior falsely reassures the public and residents who are being dangerously exposed to lead.

Since the new study has debunked CDC's previous report, Mary Jean Brown, CDC's lead poisoning prevention director, now says she knows the study could have been handled better, and researchers tried their best given the information, with which they were presented. Brown even goes as far to place blame on public agencies and city officials outside of CDC. “I cannot control how other public agencies and officials might have interpreted the 2004 report,” Brown states.  

However, Jerry Johnson, general manager of D.C. Water and Sewer Authority (WASA), was not as bending as Brown, arguing he used information provided by “experts” with the “very best” information at his disposal. Now, if I am not mistaken, it seems as if Johnson is being a bit condescending towards the researchers at Virginia Tech and the Children's National Medical Center. Is he saying because their report deems WASA and CDC as negligent, these researchers are not trained “experts” with the same, if not better, credentials? Is the information in this report not the “very best,” especially since this study extensively reveals the problems CDC and WASA overlooked, to put it nicely.

D.C. Attorney General Peter J. Nickles claims the government would look further into the study and if anything irregular is found, as the study states, Mayor Adrian M. Fenty would weigh options to improve the District's water. “Mayor Fenty takes the issue of lead in water very seriously,” Nickles said. My only concern is I hope Mayor Fenty finds a better way to dissolve the lead water crisis than he has to resolve the education and violence crises in D.C.  If not, then once again, D.C. children will suffer dire consequences.

Co-author Marc Edwards, a Virginia Tech engineer and MacArthur scholar, said many children in the city were undoubtedly impacted by years of being completely exposed to high lead levels in the District's water supply. “We hope this study will stop future harm and address the misrepresentations and false statements about what really happened,” Edwards revealed to the Post.

Dana Best, co-author of the study and a National Medical Center pediatrician and epidemiological researcher, said that “by the time there are measurable levels, the damage has been done". "We cannot continue to use children as the canaries in the coalmine. We have to stop testing children to determine what danger is in the environment and start testing the environment to make sure children don't get harmed," Best said.

Many parents, lead specialists, and city activists have questioned how many times public officials have dropped the ball with completing thorough tests of the District's water supply. Even as WASA currently claims the lead content is not harmful, this is still questionable to many parents, activists, environmentalists, and lead experts.  I must admit, I concur.

Now that the fire has been lit underneath their bottoms, some public health officials want to make amends, claiming they want to further analyze the possible links between blood-lead levels and lead water, as the new study suggests. However, Tee Guidotti, a George Washington University environmental health professor who worked under contract as a WASA health adviser during the lead water crisis, argues he stands by his initial findings in a 2007 report, stating average blood-lead levels fell between 2003 and 2004, a time when water lead levels were rising.

"Do I wish we were better understood? Do I wish certain things were said differently? Do I wish we'd had better data? Sure," Guidotti told the Post. "But those things were out of my control. In terms of what was under my control, I have no regrets about my role."

However, one should question exactly what Guidotti’s role in this sordid entanglement was. What Guidotti fails to convey to the public is that D.C. residents were warned of high lead levels in the District’s water supply and were therefore, prompted to use alternative water sources for drinking in 2003. Hence, by the time most children residing in areas with the highest concentration of lead in their tap water had been tested, they were either consuming bottled or filtered water.  Therefore, they were unlikely to have high blood-lead levels after switching from tap water to either bottled or filtered water.

Walter Smith of D.C. Appleseed Center for Law and Justice said his organization is still pursuing the idea of independent companies testing the District’s water supply.

"This casts further doubt on the reliability of the agencies who told us not to worry and are still telling us not to worry, “Appleseed told the Post. We're talking about the health of little children. It's not like this is some insignificant issue."

A deeper look into lead poisoning

According to lead specialists, damage from lead toxicity is often permanent. When affected by lead poisoning, children can display severe signs of aggressiveness and difficulty focusing in school. Children, who have suffered from lead poisoning, can lose 3 to 7 IQ points, according to several major studies. However, the harm can be mollified. Physicians say parents should play a very active role in ensuring their children’s diets are healthy and calcium-enriched. Also, parents should ensure their children are immersed in educationally-enriching environments, which include reading to children regularly.

Children younger than 2 and fetuses are most vulnerable to permanent damage from lead because their brains are still developing and the ingestion or absorption of lead is much more with children than adults, especially since children’s body weight is lower than adults. For many years, lead paint has been the main concern for children's safety; however, the lead levels present in the District's water supply for the past years, has raised even more concern than lead paint ingestion. 

My aunt was diagnosed with lead poisoning when she was younger.  Unfortunately, my aunt was one of the children who had to be used as an example that lead in paint can be harmful to children's health.  Due to lead toxicity, my aunt has had to face great challenges, even in her adulthood.  Since my aunt was raised in an underserved community, much like these D.C. children facing lead toxicity, she was unable to receive the needed care to mitigate harm caused from lead poisoning, even with receiving public healthcare.  Surprised?  However, my point is, if these children are unable to receive needed care much like my aunt, they could face great challenges in their adulthood, as well.  So, drastic measures must be pursued.

So often, Americans speak of the water crisis in “under-developed” countries. Yet, in America, children are poisoned by water. Sure, it’s easy for people to say, “Buy bottled water or a filtration system.” However, most filtration systems, unless it is reverse osmosis, will not filter out much of the contaminants in your drinking water.  Furthermore, there are several processes to purifying water for consumption, and one at-home water filtration system will not do the job.  Also, most bottled water now contains as many pollutants as city water supplies. Along other lines, some action must be done to help homeowners replace their pipeline systems with updated pipes, so they will not risk being exposed to lead toxicity.  For those who reside in apartments, these slumlords need to put money back into their investments, instead of just taking renters' money and making out like a fat rat.  If the government continues to “treat” water supplies with harmful substances without considering the consequences, and we do not work diligently to preserve natural resources, such as water, America won’t be much better than those "under-developed” societies, at which we stick up our noses.

 Source:

http://mobile.washingtonpost.com/detail.jsp?key=343790&rc=to&p=1