Questions over Harm Caused by Lead in the Water

by Lisa Nurnberger

To determine the source of kids' elevated blood lead levels during the water crisis, the Health Department had contractors inspect the children's homes. The findings - according to the health department - were that lead paint was to blame.

The Health Department's Thomas Calhoun reiterated that conclusion during a special WAMU, 88-5 call-in, three months after the story broke.

"Every singe one of them - those homes had an increased amounts of lead paint in the home, lead in the soil and lead in other areas of the home."

The next month the department issued a fact sheet that linked all but one case to the paint. The anomaly was never explained. So the message stood that paint was the real problem. Virginia Tech professor Marc Edwards says he never believed that finding and continued to investigate on his own.

"The environmental assessments which were touted as showing that none of those children had been poisoned from the water... in fact many of those assessments pointed directly to the water as the key source of hazard in the home. The message sent - that very high levels of lead in water did not cause any measurable public harm - is a false message and it has to be retracted."

Edward's conclusion prompted WAMU 88-5 to review the more than 100 assessments that were done in DC homes. Five do list the water as the primary hazard. Two other assessments identify water as the only source.

In one case the assessor said lead in the water at Wilkerson Elementary School was the likely source of a child's exposure.

In the other case, lead paint was found in the home, but it was described as intact and deemed a low risk. The assessor blamed the water.

The child's mother, who didn't want to be named, confirms that. Sitting in her living room she says she remembers when the assessor came in... and her landlord - Soho Investment Group - responded to the finding.

Mother: "They came. They had this little device for the walls and stuff. And they also did the water. So Soho gave me a filter and a pitcher for the water, saying there was lead in the water."

Reporter: "And what did they say about the paint?"

Mother: "They didn't say anything about the paint."

Reporter: "So, there was no problem with the paint?"

Mother: "No. Just the water."

The two assessments that point to water as the only likely source of lead poisoning were conducted after news coverage of the crisis died down.

But the Natural Resources Defense Council's Erik Olson says the DC Health Department should have set the record straight.

"I recall often city officials and WASA officials saying that this was a scare and that there wasn't any health impact at all - there there weren't any cases found of health impact. And to hear later that they actually collected data showing otherwise, one would expect them to go out and immediately correct the record."

Tee Guidotti is a George Washington University professor and the health advisor for the DC Water and Sewer Authority, which paid for the assessments. He didn't want to talk on tape. But said he was astonished to learn that any of the assessments pointed to the water.

The DC Health Department's Marie Sansone says the assessments were not conclusive. She says in the home that had intact lead paint, the assessor recommended a special cleaning in case the lead did chip. And she says neither report rules out other sources of lead.

"What we would be looking at is does this child go to a babysitter? Is there a home where they're spending a lot of time, perhaps a friend, another relative? Could be playgrounds, could be an area where they play. What's the condition of the paint in the school?"

In some reports, the assessors did recommend inspecting other places they suspected could be the source of the lead exposure. But some caretakers say when their kids stopped drinking the water, their blood lead levels dropped back down to normal.

Still Sansone says the DC Health Department did everything it could during the water crisis.

“We did have quite a lot of material available to people about lead in drinking water – how to protect yourself against that risk. We participated in the distribution of the water filters to the people."

But Erik Olson says the health department should have disclosed that the lead in the water appears to have harmed people, rather than placing all the blame on lead paint. He says he suspects the two cases are just the tip of the iceberg.

"I think it's absolutely critical that there be an independent audit of all the city health department records. We need to go back and figure out how widespread this problem was; and there needs to be an accounting for health department officials that made public statements saying there wasn't a problem when subsequent evidence suggests there was."

The DC Inspector General's office has received data from Virginia Tech professor Marc Edwards highlighting the problem. The office says it's awaiting a response from the Health Department before deciding whether to conduct an investigation.

For WAMU 88.5 News, I'm Lisa Nurnberger

CDC Lead Study

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, will conduct a study to better determine whether harm was caused when lead was leaching into the district's drinking water in 2004. WAMU's Lisa Nurnberger reports.

Lead became a problem after the DC Water and Sewer Authority added a new disinfectant to the water. The water became so corrosive that for over two years dangerous levels of lead leached out of pipes and fixtures.

Back in 2004 the CDC's study showed the lead was pushing kids' blood lead levels up slightly... but not above what's considered the area of concern -10 micrograms per deciliter.

The Chief of the CDC's Lead Poisoning Branch Mary Jean Brown says the follow-up study will determine whether that finding was correct.

"We're going to do the same sort of analysis on the data that we did, just to ensure that the picture that we believe we see, or that we think – we think everything's safe – just to ensure that in fact is the case."

After the CDC's study, the DC Health Department continued to inspect the homes of kids with high lead levels. The Department concluded lead paint was to blame. That message stood even after several home inspections pointed to the water as the likely culprit.

Brown says the CDC was not briefed on any of the assessments. She says her agency will review them as part of its study.

"They could give us an interesting perspective on the situation, especially if they quantify the lead in the dust and the lead in the soil and the extent of peeling paint."

Andy Bressler, who lives on Capitol Hill, wants the city to admit the water caused his twin sons' lead poisoning. Fixing a snack for them, he says the Health Department blamed the paint, but he never believed it and neither did a contractor who inspected his home for lead paint.

"They did find a couple of places – on the back door, on the back side of it, and on the back side of a window. But that was really about it. And the assessor said he really didn't see how this could have caused any elevated lead in the boys' blood."

Bressler says they addressed the lead paint problems but the boys' lead levels stayed high. More than six months later the story broke that thousands of DC homes had lead in their water. One was Bressler's. He immediately cut off the water and says his twins' lead levels finally started to drop.

The Health Department maintains it's testing showed no significant evidence of harm caused by the water. The department's Marie Sansone:

"Looking at our results, as of May 2004 we had screened over 5,000 individuals for blood lead levels. None of the evidence from that extensive screening pointed to drinking water being the main culprit of any of the elevated levels that were found."

The CDC says its study will either confirm or refute that.

Back in 2004 Virginia Tech professor Marc Edwards was involved with testing resident's homes in DC. He says he found chunks of lead solder in the screens on the end of faucets. The CDC's Mary Jean Brown says if that's true, that makes a difference in how the agency views the issue.

"It makes a difference in how contaminated you might think the water is. So, what happens if there's chunk – you know the aerator on your faucet – if there's a chunk of solder that sits there, that's a very different situation than water that comes through a leaded pipe that conceivably the water line can be flushed. Right? To lower the lead concentration? After people have run the dishwasher and whatever, the lead levels will go down. But if you have a chunk in an aerator that doesn't happen."

That's because the water continually runs through what's essentially a lead filter and pieces can fall off into the water.

Brown says the study will take several months.

Lisa Nurnberger, WAMU, 88-5 News