Why you need to get your water tested for lead ASAP
Could you or someone you love be living in the next Flint, Michigan?
When the news broke about lead poisoning in the Flint water supply, I warned you that we were opening a giant Pandora’s Box.
I explained how there were likely millions of Americans drinking water with at least as much lead as they were finding in Flint.
But a new report proves that the problem is even worse than I’d imagined. And it’s never been more important to take five urgent steps to keep your water — and your family — safe.
Politicians and bureaucrats who were only worried about covering their own backsides let residents drink water with unsafe levels of lead for months.
Some folks, especially kids, may have suffered permanent damage to their health.
But it looks like what happened in Flint wasn’t an isolated incident after all.
In fact, millions of Americans are being poisoned by lead right now — and they’ve never been warned about it.
A shocking new USA Today investigation has discovered excessive lead levels in nearly 2,000 water systems in all 50 states. v
We’re talking about 6 million people affected — and some of the highest lead levels were tested at schools and day care centers.
In fact, the lead levels were so high at one Upstate New York elementary school that the water could have been considered hazardous waste!
With toxic sludge coming out of some of our taps, you’d think health authorities and water utilities everywhere would be sounding the alarm.
Yeah, not so much.
In fact, USA Today found that 180 of the water systems never bothered to warn customers at all that they were drinking toxic levels of lead.
That’s exactly what we saw in Flint — times 180! Why aren’t people going to prison for this?
While our federal, state and local authorities do nothing, people are literally being poisoned by the water they’re drinking.
Early lead exposure is well known to cause multiple problems in kids, including lower IQs and symptoms similar to ADHD — but adults aren’t immune, either. Studies have found that lead can up your blood pressure, cause memory problems, and damage your heart, kidneys and brain.
I wish I could tell you some cavalry was coming to get lead out of our water. But by now you know it’s just not true.
So here are five simple ways to take matters into your own hands.
- To see if your water system was one of the nearly 2,000 to test for high lead levels, check out the USA Today article here and scroll down to “Lead in the Water: A Nationwide Look.”
- Even if your community was not affected, remember that lead levels can vary greatly from home to home. You should test your own tap water, either with a do-it-yourself kit, or by sending a sample to a laboratory (you can find plenty of them online).
- Before using tap water first thing in the morning, let it run for several minutes. That will allow a lot of the lead that has accumulated in your pipes to clear out.
- Never use hot water from the tap for cooking. Warm or hot tap water will contain much higher levels of lead, which won’t be reduced by boiling.
- Look into buying a water filter or reverse osmosis system that is certified to remove lead. NSF has an online database where you can search for filters certified to remove lead (you can check it out here).
And if you’re wondering what a “safe” level of lead in your water is, well, there isn’t one. Even the EPA and the CDC agree on that.
But if you want to go by the strictest standards out there, 5 PPB is the maximum level the FDA will allow in bottled water.
Sources:
“Beyond Flint: Excessive lead levels found in almost 2,000 water systems and across all 50 states” Alison Young and Mark Nichols, USA Today, March 17, 2016, usatoday.com
“How much lead in water poses an imminent threat?” Alison Young, USA Today, March 17, 2016, usatoday.com
