Environment prize goes to Flint water activist
Source: BBC
Environment prize goes to Flint water activist
1 hour ago
The founder of a citizens' movement that helped expose the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, is one of the recipients of the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize. Nearly 100,000 residents of Flint were left without safe tap water after lead began leaching into the supply.
Mother of four LeeAnne Walters led a citizens' movement that tested the tap water to expose the health threat. Tests showed lead levels in her water were seven times the acceptable limit.
In 2014, the water in Ms Walters' home turned brownish and she noticed rashes on her three-year-old twins. Her daughters' hair then fell out in clumps. Walters spent months reading technical documents about the Flint water system. She then teamed up with environmental engineer Dr Marc Edwards, from Virginia Tech, who helped her conduct extensive water testing in the city. She methodically sampled each zip code in Flint and set up a system to ensure the integrity of the tests, working over 100 hours per week for three weeks. They showed lead levels as high as 13,200 parts per billion in some parts of the city - more than twice the level classified as hazardous waste by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
The contamination was traced to the city switching its water supply away from Detroit's system, which draws from Lake Huron, and beginning instead to draw water from the Flint River.
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Read more: http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-438402
Rhiannon12866
(203,019 posts)Response to nitpicker (Original post)
LovingA2andMI This message was self-deleted by its author.
llmart
(15,501 posts)Can't remember her name right now, but it was a woman who persevered in that disaster who put Love Canal in the spotlight.