Some Cities Have Higher Lead Levels Than Flint: Find Your City

FLINT, MI – The Flint water crisis has been dominant in national headlines over the past several weeks, but it’s not the only place in Michigan where children are exposed dangerously high lead levels that can cause irreversible brain damage.

Despite decades of public health campaigns and millions of dollars spent to eradicate lead, it remains a problem in several Michigan cities due to lead paint and and lead in dust, not because of their water supplies.

That’s according to a report by Mike Wilkinson, a computer-assisted reporting specialist for the nonprofit Bridge Magazine and a convening partner for the Detroit Journalism Cooperative, composed of five nonprofit media groups focused on the city’s future after bankruptcy, reprinted by The Detroit News.

An interactive map on the Bridge Magazine site allows visitors to search by ZIP code.

Flint turned off the taps to water from Detroit, which gets its supply from Lake Huron, and switched to water from the more Flint River in a money-saving move while under the control of an emergency manager in 2014. The corrosive water caused lead in aging pipes to leach.

The city switched back to water from Lake Huron in October, a month after a blistering report showed the proportion of Flint children with above-average levels of lead in their blood had nearly doubled since switch.

According to Wilkinson’s report, 5 percent of children had elevated levels of lead in their blood, though percentages were higher in some parts of the city of about 102,500 people.

“This is still an issue,” Dr. Eden Wells, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Service’s chief medical executive said of the lead issue in cities across the state. “It’s not going away.”

Related

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• State Delayed Action on Lead in Flint Water
• DEQ Director Resigns Over Flint Water Crisis
• Justice Department Looking at Flint Water Crisis
• Governor Declares Emergency in Flint Water Crisis
• Lawsuit Asks Court to Force State to Fix Flint Water Lines
• Former Prosecutor, Ex-FBI Chief Lead Flint Probe
• 2 DEQ Workers Suspended In Flint Water Crisis
• Congress Launches Inquiry Into Flint Water Crisis, $80M Aid Approved
• Flint Water Crisis and Scandal: 5 Things to Know
• Pistons Owner Pledges $10M to Flint, Cites Private Sector Role

» Photo of by Neeta Lind via Flickr / Creative Commons