Flint's not the only one: 6 U.S. cities' water supplies have been inundated with lead

Flint's not the only one: 6 U.S. cities' water supplies have been inundated with lead

Thursday, March 10, 2016 by: Harold Shaw


Tags: Flint Michigan, lead poisoning, water supplies



(NaturalNews) A few months ago, the man-made water disaster finally blew up in Flint and on the media, after almost two years of struggle. Although bottled water was finally delivered to residents in January, what has taken place in Flint can no longer be swept under the carpet. For almost two years, state officials were well aware of the deplorable state of Flint's water system. Instead of warning the people, they chose to endorse lead-poisoned water as healthy so they could keep more money for themselves.

But while everyone's been focusing on Flint, several other cities in Michigan are showing even higher levels of lead contamination in the water. With no one to hold responsible, it seems that the crisis in Flint is just about to repeat itself.

Other areas of Michigan are doing even worse
In Flint, Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha discovered that up to 6.3% of children had lead in their blood, but the situation is even worse throughout the rest of Michigan. In 2014, 7,000 children were tested in Highland Park, Hamtramck and Detroit, and 13.5% of them tested positive for lead contamination. The situation was just as hazardous in Grand Rapids, where 10% of tested children showed high levels of lead in their blood. In Adrian and south-central Michigan, the percentage rose to 12%. Other cities facing a similar crisis in Michigan include Jackson, Saginaw, Muskegon and Holland.

Overall, 3.5% of children tested throughout Michigan suffer from high blood lead levels. At first, this seems reassuring, but in one zip code in Detroit, as many as 20.8% of children tested positive for lead. Although the overall figure is better than the alarming 25% recorded in 2002, it still means that more than 5,100 children in Michigan will face life-long cognitive disabilities associated with lead poisoning.

Children are paying the highest price
In 2013, a study from the University of Michigan linked lead exposure in children with significantly lower results on standardized tests. According to this study, children that had between 2 and 5 micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood were 33% more likely to show poor academic performance, while children with more than 5 micrograms per deciliter were 50% more likely to perform poorly on tests.

These results don't come as a surprise, however, especially since lead is known as a toxin that can severely impair cognitive abilities in children, as well as hinder their natural development. According to Kieya Morrison, a kindergarten teacher from Detroit, the damaging effects of lead are very easily observable in exposed children. They often have trouble performing the simplest cognitive tasks and cannot normally process or retain information.

Be prepared! It might get even worse
Lead poisoning is not an issue restricted to Flint or even to Michigan. With more than 7.3 million lead service lines^[PDF] across the United States, the water system in the entire nation has long been headed for collapse.

In 2014 alone, nine counties throughout the United States reported to the CDC that 10% of their lead poisoning tests were positive. Dangerously elevated levels of lead were recently discovered in Sebring, Ohio, Los Angeles and some areas of New York. But no one is rushing the replacement of toxic lead pipes. Instead, state officials are waiting for thousands of children to test positive for lead poisoning before they decide to act.

And if before you weren't questioning whether government health and environmental agencies have your best interest and health and heart, what happened in Flint should definitely be a lesson. At the end of the day, it's much safer to take the well-being of yourself and your children into your own hands. Learn how to filter, store and purify your own water today.

Sources include:

TheDailySheeple.com

MichiganRadio.org

EPA.gov^[PDF]

Science.NaturalNews.com