D.C.’s water linked to elevated lead levels in kids
Newly obtained documents detailing house inspections performed during Washington, D.C.’s 2004 lead crisis don’t support statements by public officials.
Washington, D.C.’s lead crisis in 2004 prompted home inspections that tied high levels of lead in some children’s blood to elevated lead levels in local tap water, but the inspectors’ reports were not made public. Recently obtained through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to the D.C. Department of Health (DOH), the assessments are the first official documents to make this connection in Washington, D.C, and they contradict statements made by officials during the crisis. An environmental advocacy group has called for an independent investigation.
The scope of Washington’s lead crisis [316KB PDF], in which more than 20,000 households were found to have high levels of lead in their tap water, was unprecedented in recent U.S. history. Epidemiological blood-lead studies by DOH, in cooperation with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), have suggested that lead in the tap water had, at most, only a minor effect on children’s blood-lead levels.
The newly discovered reports, however, suggest a clear connection between lead-contaminated water and elevated blood-lead levels in some D.C. children. The information comes from 93 home lead-inspection assessments obtained under a FOIA request by Marc Edwards, a civil engineer at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Edwards has uncovered other irregularities in the D.C. lead case. Although public-health experts rarely look to water as a source of lead, water has recently been blamed for childhood lead poisoning in Greenville and Durham, N.C.
During the crisis, which peaked in early 2004, DOH supervised environmental-assessment contractors who visited the houses of children with elevated blood-lead levels to look for sources of lead. The city’s water provider, the D.C. Water and Sewer Authority (DCWASA), paid for the work.
DCWASA general manager Jerry Johnson in July 2004 testified to Congress [MS Word] that in every case these assessments showed that water was not the source of the lead exposure.
Eric Olson, director of advocacy for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), an environmental group, says that DOH should correct the record. “During and after the crisis, D.C. officials repeatedly said that there was no public-health threat from the lead contamination,” he says. “The stunning thing is that they obviously had data to show that children’s health was harmed in some cases, but they hid it.”
The difference between what the assessments say and how public officials summarized them is “shocking”, says Olson.
The results reported in the 93 assessments released to Edwards vary in quality and conclusions. In two reports, water was the only obvious source the assessor could find. In one case, the inspector could find no source at home, but the child attended an elementary school where samples with as much as 7300 parts per billion (ppb) lead were collected. In 21 of the reports, assessors found no problems with paint, dust, or soil lead levels.
But the assessors did not systematically sample tap water, and when they did sample, they often did not follow accepted protocols. Water samples were lacking entirely in 25 of the reports. Eleven assessments found water lead levels above 15 ppb. If standard protocols had been followed, lead levels in the water almost certainly would have been revealed to be higher, according to Edwards.
Marie Sansone, a senior administrator of DOH, says that the official who directly oversaw the department’s role in the lead crisis is no longer with DOH. That official may have had other information about the children or may have made a mistake, adds Sansone. DOH is investigating the matter, she adds.
CDC is embarking on new research to study trends in D.C. children’s blood-lead levels, now that tap water shows acceptable levels. But the CDC will not consider the DOH home inspections, a CDC spokesperson says.
It’s not CDC’s job to investigate apparent discrepancies between public statements about these assessments and the results themselves, the spokesperson says. Determining how a child is exposed to lead is a difficult task because of the myriad potential exposure routes, the spokesperson adds.
NRDC’s Olson is calling for an investigation. “Years after the fact, we find out that public officials withheld public-health data. Major public-health [decisions] cannot be based on secret information,” he says. Any thorough investigation should be independent, he continues, and “not just for D.C. but for other communities where lead is a problem.”
