Mayor Dr. Karen Weaver has declared a state of emergency in Flint, Michigan after a number of children suffered lead poisoning from the city’s tap water.
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In a statement released Monday, Dr. Weaver said the lead poisoning “will result in learning disabilities and the need for special education and mental health services and an increase in the juvenile justice system.” Read the full statement below.
After a state-appointed Emergency Manager severed Flint’s ties to the Detroit water system in 2014 as a cost saving measure, residents were left to use water pumped in from the Flint River, water they say was not only smelly and toxic but costlier than the clean water they’d received from Detroit.
In June, Cliff Russell of WCHB reported on LeeAnne Walters – a concerned stay-at home mom with four sons and a husband in the Navy— who had her water tested twice by the city of Flint this past March and both times found dangerously high levels of lead—104 parts per billion (ppb) and 397 ppb, respectively. But it was the result of a third test of the tap water in her home, performed by independent experts at Virginia Tech university, that left Walters stunned. The VT researchers discovered lead levels in Walters’ water reached a jaw-dropping 13,200 ppb—more than twice the amount at which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency classifies water as hazardous waste.
In September, doctors from the Hurley Medical Center presented findings of rise in blood lead levels of children less than 5 years old living within Flint zip codes 48501-48507 after the switch to Flint River water as the source. The study found the proportion of children and infants with above-average levels of lead in their blood had nearly doubled since the switch.
In October, WCHB reported toxic levels of lead were found in the water at three area schools, with one school registering more than six times the federal safety standard.
Tune in to AM 1200 WCHB for the latest on this matter.
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Flint Declares State of Emergency After Children Suffer Lead Poisoning from Drinking Tap Water was originally published on wchbnewsdetroit.com
