Safe drinking water

Sven

Officials said in a Wednesday announcement that the move comes out of an abundance of caution, and is part of a "longer-term effort to eliminate exceedances of the federal lead standard, educate the community on the effects of lead in drinking water, remove lead service lines and increase confidence in filtered water from the tap."

Benton Harbor, located about 50 miles southwest of Kalamazoo, is working with state and local entities to reduce exposure to lead in drinking water by replacing its lead service lines.

This is a similar issue with the city of Flint, MI several years ago when the lead concentration in city water exceeds the EPA limit. Lead piping is widely used in many city water infrastructure and pH of the water must be maintained to minimize solubilizing lead into the drinking water. Lead pipes are gradually replaced and Biden's Infrastructure Bill is supposed to speed up the replacement so to ensure safe drinking water.

https://npr.org/live-updates/texas-abortion-malaria-vaccine#residents-of-a-michigan-city-are-told-to-rely-on-bottled-water-for-safety-reasons

Crash

Thanks for letting us know. Why the speed-up hasn't already been implemented blows my mind.

hank

LewisBraham

Reason: Taxes need to go up to replace the outdated parts of our water system infrastructure, but many people don't want their taxes to go up. Better that some drink toxic water is the prevailing viewpoint. It's a familiar problem.

Sven

Agree on how to pay for local infrastructure with some states being better than the others. Several water issues arise in the state of Michigan whether they are merely coincidence or not, but they all point to old piping not being updated. My home state of Oregon levies sizable property and income taxes. In the last several years we are facing fire hazard which is not a common issue we had.