Two water samples that were tested for lead and copper contamination by The Water Collaborative of Greater New Orleans sit next to a kitchen sink. (Photo courtesy of The Water Collaborative of Greater New Orleans)
NEW ORLEANS — A local environmental nonprofit released a report on Saturday that says it found lead in the water of nearly 90% of homes it tested throughout the city over the summer.
The Water Collaborative of Greater New Orleans, which focuses on advocacy and awareness surrounding water policy and management, tested the water in 144 homes across 37 neighborhoods in New Orleans over the summer and said that 88% of the homes tested positive for lead. The group released its findings to the public at Tulane River and Coastal Center.
The nonprofit collected its data this summer after seeking residents to volunteer for testing. Members of the Water Collaborative went into people’s homes, collected demographic information and water samples, then sent the samples to a lab for testing.
The study measures lead contamination by city council district, finding that District C had the highest number of households that exceeded EPA lead thresholds in the Marigny, Bywater and Holy Cross neighborhoods. District E, which includes New Orleans East, had the lowest lead levels and the lowest number of participants. The Water Collaborative didn’t find a strong level of correlation between the age of a home, participants’ race or income and the levels of lead in their home.
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The results were released only days after the Environmental Protection Agency revised its Lead and Copper Rule, a regulation that sets thresholds for the amount of metal contamination allowed in public tap water. The revisions lower acceptable thresholds of lead from 15 to 10 parts per billion (ppb) and call for the replacement of lead service lines within the next 10 years.
In a written statement to Verite News, the Sewerage & Water Board said it aims to complete a comprehensive lead line replacement to keep up with federal guidelines and have received $86 million in state funding to do so. On Friday (Oct 11), the agency released an interactive map to document all of the city’s lead service lines and will update the map as they conduct more inventories and get more information.
“Ultimately, the goal is to replace lead pipes on both public utility-owned property and on private customer-owned property,” the statement said.
Bruce Lanphear, a professor at Simon Fraser University who studies sources of lead contamination and their adverse health effects and was not involved with the study, said one part per billion is the equivalent of a single tablespoon of sugar in an Olympic-sized swimming pool. According to Lanphear, agencies should aim to reduce lead contamination to 5 ppb over the next 5 to 10 years and to less than 1 ppb after that.
A little over a quarter of the homes tested in the Water Collaborative’s study had lead levels that exceeded 5 ppb and 7.5 percent of the homes tested exceeded the EPA’s old threshold.
Adrienne Katner, an associate professor at Louisiana State University who studies water contamination, told Verite News that the EPA’s new standard doesn’t go far enough to address the public health risks associated with lead contamination.
“Just because a city is compliant with the Lead and Copper Rule does not mean that everybody in the city is safe from lead in water,” Katner said.
Did the survey accurately capture city demographics?
Despite the concerning results of the survey, it had its limitations. Katner said the sample size is small and doesn’t accurately represent the demographics of the city. The largest group of participants in the study had a household income of $100,000 or more in a population with a median household income of $55,580, according to the U.S. Census. Only a quarter of the participants in the survey were Black, whereas the city’s population is 53% Black.
Also, the Water Collaborative only tested the water in a few homes in New Orleans East and the West Bank, which were developed later than the rest of the city. The Water Collaborative said in its report that newer constructions are at risk for lead exposure, especially if they had been rebuilt after Hurricane Katrina with their original plumbing still intact.
Taya Fontenette, project lead for the survey, said there were barriers that made it difficult for low-income groups to take part in the study. An entire household couldn’t use their water for six hours before the Water Collaborative collected samples, meaning that no one could flush the toilet or run the tap in any part of the house, which may have been especially difficult for families with children in the summer. She said the organization could have worked more closely with neighborhood organizations and communities of color, but was limited by those who chose to engage with the Water Collaborative over digital communications, which was how the group recruited participants for the study.
Water is held in an aerating pond at the Sewerage & Water Board plant in New Orleans. (Greg LaRose/Louisiana Illuminator)
Katner said that lead contamination might not be on underserved communities’ radars because it isn’t a priority issue. There might also be less education surrounding the risks in these communities, she said.
“There needs to be more of an emphasis on targeting those communities to educate them about low-dose lead impacts,” Katner said. “They’re not necessarily going to hear it from their pediatricians. They’re not necessarily going to have the time to look up that information and so, they’re also going to be the least likely to go and get some of those water treatment systems that people who are a little more affluent can afford.”
Renters might also not be incentivized to learn about their water, Katner said, because they aren’t living in homes that they can financially invest in.
What are the next steps?
In 2012, the understanding of the effect of lead contamination changed when the Center for Disease Control found that any level of lead in the body could cause adverse health effects. Although lead poisoning poses risks to children’s developmental health, it can also cause damage to the reproductive and immune systems of adults, according to the CDC.
Lead contamination typically enters household water through lead service pipes, from soldering on newer pipes and brass faucet fixtures, Katner said. Although they are still in use today, Louisiana started to enforce a federal rule banning the inclusion of new lead service pipes in 1988.
Fontenette said newer developments are less likely to be directly connected to lead service lines, but are still at risk for contamination, as water from treatment centers can be carried through older lead lines before reaching the home. While conducting the study, she said many people weren’t aware that lead lines were still in service and could be contaminating their drinking water.
“Even if you personally don’t have a lead line, the majority of households that we tested had some degree of lead tested in or detected in the water,” Fontenette said.
The Sewerage & Water Board of New Orleans says on its website that the water that leaves its treatment centers is lead-free and that it takes measures to reduce pipe corrosion by adding lime (calcium oxide) to the water.
The Water Collaborative’s study said corrosion control isn’t enough to address what they call a public health crisis. Instead, they recommend full replacements of all lead lines in the city. Full replacements remove public and private sections of a lead service line and serve as a permanent and safe solution.
Fontenette said that full service line replacements shouldn’t be a cost burden for residents. Partial replacements — which occur only on publicly owned lines — can sometimes increase short-term contamination, according to the EPA. In the meantime, Fontenette and Katner emphasized that residents can protect themselves by using low-cost filtering options at home, such as a pitcher or faucet-mounted filter.
Although the survey was small and had limitations, Lanphear said efforts like this are an important first step in identifying problems.
“The results are worrisome and suggest that a larger survey needs to be done urgently to identify the extent of the problem in New Orleans,” Lanphear said.
This article first appeared on Verite News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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