After city testing found high lead levels in the tap water in her Chicago home, Jenny Abrahamian decided to install a whole-house water filtration system and an additional reverse-osmosis filter for her kitchen sink. (Erin Hooley/Chicago Tribune)
Amid renewed national attention to the dangers of lead poisoning, hundreds of Chicagoans have taken the city up on its offer of free testing kits to determine if they are drinking tap water contaminated with the brain-damaging metal.
A Tribune analysis of the results shows lead was found in water drawn from nearly 70 percent of the 2,797 homes tested during the past two years. Tap water in 3 of every 10 homes sampled had lead concentrations above 5 parts per billion, the maximum allowed in bottled water by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Alarming amounts of the toxic metal turned up in water samples collected throughout the city, the newspaper’s analysis found, largely because Chicago required the use of lead service lines between street mains and homes until Congress banned the practice in 1986. The testing kit results provide the most conclusive evidence yet of widespread hazards that have remained hidden for decades. Yet as Mayor Rahm Emanuel […]
Full article: Brain-damaging lead found in tap water in hundreds of homes tested across Chicago, results show
More about communities with lead contamination in public water supplies:
At least 2% of US public water systems are like Flint’s – Americans just don’t hear about them
Data Shows San Diego Officials Misled the Public on Potential Source of Lead in Water
Kids Risk Lead-Contaminated Drinking Water in Schools
DC drinking water needs more monitoring for lead, audit finds
Lead-Tainted Water In Schools: Connecticut Gets Failing Grade
Michigan’s Lead in Drinking Water Protections Under Attack
New Mexico: New administration opens up on lead data
Toxic legacy: Wash U researchers look for ways to keep lead out of drinking water
Duke Study: Rivers Contaminated With Radium and Lead From Thousands of Fracking Wastewater Spills
In Echo of Flint, Lead Water Crisis Now Hits Newark, New Jersey
What new EPA lead regulations mean for local drinking water protection
New York governor signs law mandating lead testing in schools
Hillsborough School District found lead in its water, didn’t tell parents for a year.
What Nashville’s Metro Schools Isn’t Telling You About Lead In Water
Gov. Brown Signs Bill Requiring California Water Districts to Test School Water for Lead
