Lead level in Flint water falls below federal limit
But residents urged to use filters while pipes are replaced.
LANSING, MICH. — Fl i nt ’s wat e r s y s t e m n o l o n ge r has levels of lead exceeding the federal limit, a key finding that Michigan environmental officials said Tuesday was good news for a city whose 100,000 residents have been grappling with the man-made water crisis.
The 90th percentile of lead concentrations in Flint was 12 parts per billion from July through December, below the “action level” of 15 parts per billion, according to a letter from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality to Flint’s mayor. It was 20 parts per billion in the prior six-month period.
Based on the sample of 368 residential sites, Flint’s lead levels are again comparable to those of other similarly sized U.S. cities with older infrastructure, state officials said.
“This is good news and the result of many partners on the local, county, state and federal levels working together to restore the water quality in the City of Flint,” the department’s director, Heidi Grether, said in a statement.
Residents, whose mistrust in government remains high nearly three years after a fateful switch of Flint’s water source in April 2014 while the city was under state management, are being told to continue using faucet filters or bottled water because an ongoing mass replacement of pipes could spike lead levels in individual houses.
Tuesday’s announcement drew immediate skepticism Michigan governor
from some residents.
“There’s still lead in the system,” said Melissa Mays. “Especially with disruptions, main breaks — pieces of lead scale will be breaking off until these pipes are replaced. You cannot tell me the water is safe because you have not tested every home.”
Flint’s public health emergency began when lead from old pipes leached lead into the water supply because corrosion-reducing phosphates were not added after a switch from Detroit’s water supply to the more caustic water of the Flint River.
Elevated levels of lead, a neurotoxin, were detected in children, and 12 people died in a Legionnaires’ disease outbreak that experts suspect was linked to the improperly treated water. An ongoing investigation has led to charges against 13 current or former government officials, including two managers who Republican Gov. Rick Snyder appointed to run the city.
“The remarkable improvement in water quality over the past year is a testament to all levels of government working together and the resilient people of Flint helping us help them through participation in the flushing programs,” Snyder said in a statement. “There is still more work to do in Flint, and I remain committed to helping the residents recover and restore their city.”
While it is important for cities to be below the federal limit, experts say there is no safe level of lead and the crisis has exposed gaps in a monitoring system that can mislead individual homeowners and renters into thinking their tap water is safe when only some homes with lead pipes have been sampled.
Flint Mayor Karen Weaver called the results “encouraging” but said, “We are not out of the woods yet.”