Activists in Benton Harbor say it’s been an uphill battle getting the city, county and state to take action
Bobbie Clay first realized something was wrong a few years ago.
The water at her Benton Harbor, Michigan, home had started coming out of the tap looking “bubbly and whitish”. When she filled a glass with it, she could see matter floating around inside. “I became very concerned,” she recalled in a recent interview.
She wasn’t alone. For years, residents of this small, struggling city in south-west Michigan had been having similar problems. When Carmela Patton turned on her sink to make coffee, the water came out brown. When Emma Kinnard ran hers, it came out the color of tea and “sizzling like Alka-Seltzer”. Rasta Smith said his water looked normal, but had a “horrible” taste and a smell that reminded him of rotting sewage. “It’s bad, man,” he said. “It’s real bad.”
Some immediately began buying bottled water and encouraging friends and family to do the same. Others would continue to use the tap water for years and, in many cases, still do. When residents raised questions and concerns, they said, officials in the city and county were unresponsive.
Finally, in 2018, they found out what was going on: tap water samples tested that summer revealed lead levels of 22 parts per billion – well over the federal lead action level of 15 parts per billion and higher, even, than the 20 parts per billion nearby Flint averaged at the height of the crisis that made that city a national symbol of environmental injustice.
Continue reading:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/21/benton-harbor-michigan-lead-water-poisoned
