- An investigation by the USA TODAY Network has found that millions of Americans, many in rural communities, are at risk for drinking water contaminated with lead.
The journalists spent 2016 reviewing millions of records from the Environmental Protection Agency and small communities across the country, interviewing 120 people using untested or lead-tainted tap water and found the following:
- Approximately 100,000 people’s drinking water comes from utilities that were aware of high lead but failed to treat the water to remove it.
- Close to 4 million Americans get their water from small utilities that skipped required lead tests or did not conduct the tests properly, violating federal safe drinking water laws.
- Close to 850 small water utilities with documented histories of lead contamination have failed to properly test for lead at least once since 2010.
State and federal water safety officials told USA TODAY that regulators are often more lenient with small water systems because of their lack of resources, actually deeming some as lost causes because they don’t have the resources to fix problems with the water.
Dangers of lead exposure include irreversible brain damage, lowered IQ, behavioral problems and language delays and Marc Edwards, one of the nation’s top experts on the subject, told USA TODAY that those in rural areas are most susceptible to exposure to those dangers, and the least capable of affording treatment.
A map of the U.S. from the EPA (pictured above) shows the percentage of each state’s small water-utility customers who draw water from a system that has failed to properly test for lead since 2010. Leading the pack at more than 20 percent is Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah and Maryland. The percentage in Kansas ranges from 10.1 to 20.1 percent and the percentage in Colorado ranges from 5.1 to 10 percent.
