{"id":83403,"date":"2019-12-10T15:37:41","date_gmt":"2019-12-10T21:37:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/?p=83403"},"modified":"2019-12-10T15:37:41","modified_gmt":"2019-12-10T21:37:41","slug":"a-grandfathers-battle-against-the-lead-in-drinking-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/a-grandfathers-battle-against-the-lead-in-drinking-water\/","title":{"rendered":"A grandfather\u2019s battle against the lead in drinking water"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Henry Ren<\/strong>
\nMedill Reports<\/em><\/p>\n

Hyde Park resident Gordon Berry had never imagined that the drinking water in his century-old house could be contaminated by lead, until his 2-year-old granddaughter, who resided with him, had a routine blood test in January 2016.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey found lead in her blood,\u201d Berry said.<\/p>\n

Horrified by the result, Berry \u201cimmediately\u201d called the city to test the water. He didn\u2019t hear the test results from the city until an investigative reporter knocked at his door in early May 2016.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe said, \u2018did you know this house has the highest lead content in the water of any house measured in Chicago?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd we would never have known but for her,\u201d Berry said.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The reporter also told him that three Chicago residents had filed a legal complaint in February, alleging that the city\u2019s maintenance work on water lines was causing \u201celevated and unsafe\u201d lead levels in the water delivered to their houses.<\/p>\n

In Chicago, about 80%<\/a> of the properties, including Berry\u2019s 131-year-old house, connect to the water mains through aging lead service lines. A disturbance such as installing water meters, an EPA study has shown<\/a>, can damage the protective coating inside the lead service lines, thus causing lead to leach into the water.<\/p>\n

Berry joined the lawsuit as a plaintiff in January 2017.<\/p>\n

He claimed that the water meter replacement in 2009 \u2013 which the city said was 2005 \u2013 placed his family at a higher risk of lead contamination. The city countered that the basement piping in Berry\u2019s house was to blame.<\/p>\n

The plaintiffs\u2019 complaints were dismissed twice by the circuit court, but the dismissals were reversed over a dissent by the appellate court in May 2019. The city appealed to the Illinois Supreme Court, which decided to hear the case.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will be almost dead before it’s all done,\u201d Berry said.<\/p>\n

In his brief to the Supreme Court, Berry\u2019s attorney, Mark Vazquez, wrote that the plaintiffs now \u201cmust undergo diagnostic testing to determine the extent of their physical harm.\u201d<\/p>\n

The plaintiffs asked the city to establish a trust fund to cover the medical test costs for residents who had had their water mains or meters changed after January 2008.<\/p>\n

The city, however, argued that plaintiffs didn\u2019t prove a \u201cpresent physical injury.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vazquez rebutted that waiting until physically manifesting an injury is too late. He compared the case to a company dumping waste into a river and exposing nearby residents to the polluted water.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho should pay for that testing now? Why should the residents have to pay for it when a company has been exposing them to this harm?\u201d Vazquez said.<\/p>\n

Berry is not the only Chicago resident who has requested a water test. In the first half of 2019, representatives of the Chicago Department of Water Management (DWM) visited 30 residences on average every day for water testing.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The results showed that about 36% of the tests, or nearly 2,000 residences, yielded a lead level of no less than 5 parts per billion in at least one sample collected. The maximum lead content allowed in bottled drinking water is 5 ppb.<\/p>\n

David Jacobs, adjunct associate professor at the School of Public Health of the University of Illinois at Chicago, said the 5-ppb level is not \u201cextraordinarily high\u201d. For children, he said, the primary source of lead exposure is in paints, soil and dust.<\/p>\n

But he added, \u201clead in any amount is not a good thing and should be reduced to the fullest extent possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Health authorities state that there is no safe level of lead exposure<\/a> or lead in children\u2019s blood<\/a>. Even low levels of lead in children\u2019s blood, the EPA says, can result in behavior, learning, and hearing problems and lower IQ.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Still, the city has no timetable to replace the lead service lines, though the DWM has announced plans<\/a> to explore the feasibility of citywide replacements in 2018.<\/p>\n

Elin Betanzo, a water quality expert and former EPA employee based in Michigan, criticized the Chicago water utility for not replacing lead service lines at the time of water main replacements, which, she said, is the cheapest time to do so.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are allowing a very well-known and well-documented risk to continue to occur in homes,\u201d Betanzo said.<\/p>\n

All lead service lines in Michigan are required to be replaced<\/a> over 20 years starting from 2021, as the state set a new standard in 2018 to safeguard drinking water.<\/p>\n

But replacing all lead service lines in Chicago could be a \u201cmulti-billion dollar program<\/a>\u201d, according to the DWM.<\/p>\n

The Illinois EPA data shows that there are at least about 400,000<\/a> lead service lines in Chicago. If we assume the average cost of replacing one line is $5,000, the total cost of replacing all lead service lines can be $2 billion, which is larger than the budget of the Chicago Police Department in 2020.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The quote Gordon Berry got, however, was not that cheap. Replacing the lead line from the street to the house would cost him $30,000, which he said is because the house is \u201clong.\u201d<\/p>\n

Weeks ago, plumbers changed all lead pipes in his basement to copper, which cost him $3,000.<\/p>\n

Since three years ago, he has flushed the toilets and run the water in the kitchen sink for five minutes every morning to reduce lead, as suggested by the city.<\/p>\n

He installed a chemical filter in his house, but he rarely uses it now, because the filter requires changing every few months. He still drinks tap water because he \u201cflushes the water regularly.\u201d<\/p>\n

But not his granddaughter, if she and her mother come to Berry\u2019s house.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey only drink bottled water, I think, even at home on their own.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHer mother never drinks the water even from the filter. She doesn\u2019t want it to happen again.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s reasonable, right? That\u2019s their only child.\u201d<\/p>\n

Photo at top: Gordon Berry, a Hyde Park resident, stands next to the copper pipe in the basement of his house. He changed his indoor piping from lead to copper weeks ago, which cost him $3,000. (Henry Ren\/MEDILL)<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Henry Ren Medill Reports Hyde Park resident Gordon Berry had never imagined that the drinking water in his century-old house could be contaminated by lead, until his 2-year-old granddaughter, who resided with him, had a routine blood test in January 2016. \u201cThey found lead in her blood,\u201d Berry said. Horrified by the result, Berry […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":599,"featured_media":83410,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4780,29,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fall-2019","category-health-and-science","category-public-affairs"],"yoast_head":"\nA grandfather\u2019s battle against the lead in drinking water - Medill Reports Chicago<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/a-grandfathers-battle-against-the-lead-in-drinking-water\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A grandfather\u2019s battle against the lead in drinking water - Medill Reports Chicago\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Henry Ren Medill Reports Hyde Park resident Gordon Berry had never imagined that the drinking water in his century-old house could be contaminated by lead, until his 2-year-old granddaughter, who resided with him, had a routine blood test in January 2016. \u201cThey found lead in her blood,\u201d Berry said. 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