9/19/2023 0 Comments Little miss flint![]() ![]() “The fact remains our water still smells like bleach,” she said. “We didn’t realize we had lead in our water, so we delayed testing until way over 30 days, which is the time that lead stays in the blood,” she said.īrezzell said her family uses their household water for “maybe two to three minutes to shower”, but with anything else – cooking, drinking, brushing their teeth – “it’s all bottled water”. But she is skeptical about whether the test would show lead exposure because of its timing. The potent neurotoxin is also only detectable for up to 30 days.īrezzell said Copeny was administered a test, and it returned a low result. Researchers say there is no safe level of lead exposure. Testing by the Genesee County health department, which oversees Flint, has identified 230 children under 18 with blood lead levels greater than 5 micrograms per deciliter, a level deemed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to be “much higher than most children’s levels”. ![]() About 31,000 people have been tested for lead poisoning since October 2015, state records show, when Michigan’s governor, Rick Snyder, conceded that officials failed to require Flint to properly treat its water. “While some tests are coming back and showing improvement, there are other tests that are coming back as being negative,” said Copeny’s mother, Loui “Lulu” Brezzell.īrezzell said she was aware of at least one resident who just this month received a high lead test. Mari Copeny waits in line to enter a hearing room on Capitol Hill in Washington on 17 March. But many remain deeply skeptical of the proclamation, after having been assured previously by city and state officials that the water was safe to drink, even when it wasn’t. Water from the corrosive Flint river isn’t being used any more, the US Congress has approved $170m to remove lead pipes in the city, and officials have pointed to promising signs of a water system that’s being repaired.Īnd earlier this month, researchers who first aided the effort to uncover the lead contamination announced new results that Flint’s water quality has dramatically improved. Thirteen people have now been criminally charged in Flint for their roles in the contamination, and officials say more charges are still to come. As a result, officials said, all children under the age of six in the city – about 8,000-9,000 – needed to be treated as if they had been exposed to lead. The state later admitted that officials failed to require Flint’s water department to use corrosion control agents that would have prevented lead from leaching off water pipes and flowing into households. Independent studies revealed the percentage of Flint children with elevated blood lead levels spiked after the city began using the local river as its main source of water in April 2014. “Nothing’s changed,” she said by phone with a faint voice, “because the water’s been making my skin itchy. The visit was welcomed, but it did little to alter the new normal in Flint: despite moves to repair the water system and reassurances from officials that the water is safe, many residents including Copeny still won’t drink the water. “My mom said chances are you will be too busy with more important things,” Copeny wrote at the time, “but there is a lot of people coming on these buses and even just a meeting from you or your wife would really lift people’s spirits.”Ĭopeny’s mother received a call letting her known that, actually, he would be coming to Flint instead, and would like to meet her. ![]()
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