When most people think of lead in drinking water, Flint, Michigan comes to mind. Those very high levels of lead occurred because the water wasn’t treated with an anti-corrosive compound and it leached lead from pipes in residents’ older homes.
A group of journalism students from the University of South Florida St. Petersburg (USFSP) wondered what’s happening in older, lower-income neighborhoods in St. Petersburg. They are using what they learned to promote the use of water filters that can effectively remove lead in homes that still have lead water pipes. “We found lead in all samples, just not a lot and certainly below the EPA levels,” said Bernardo Motta, the USFSP professor who led the students’ investigation. “But lead is toxic at any level, especially when you have babies.”
Although Motta expected to find lead in some homes, he didn’t expect to find it in all 45 samples tested by students from the Neighborhood News Bureau, a working newsroom staffed by journalism students covering the historic African-American
midtown communities who worked with students at Academy Press to
collect water from their own homes.
The issue isn’t the water that leaves treatment facilities — it’s the fact that most homes built prior to 1986 have lead pipes. Tampa Bay Water adds calcium to minimize leaching but it’s not 100% effective, acccording to Motta.
The students are embarking upon a new outreach effort to let residents know that the correct kind of water filter can remove lead. “We wanted to not just raise awareness about the state of pipes in houses, but to provide information about using things such as filters to reduce intake,” said Andrea Perez, a USFSP master’s journalism student. “There are many options besides pipe repair and replacement to reduce the amount of lead found in water and we wanted to provide those solutions not just gloom and doom.”
There’s still a long way to go, she adds. “A lot of people just aren’t aware that they should be testing their water.” And it’s not just water, Motta said. Lead is found in old paint, which can become mixed with dirt in some yards.
Medicaid covers blood testing for young children, Motta notes, and children who may have been exposed to lead because they live in older houses with lead pipes should be tested. “You can’t change the level of lead, but you can mitigate for the impact and take steps to minimize future exposure,” he said.
While Hillsborough County has a lead mitigation specialist, Pinellas and the city of St. Petersburg don’t, so residents must pay to have lead levels in water checked, Motta said. While officials can’t recommend a specific brand of water filter, it is suggested that residents carefully read labels to choose the best option for their needs. “There are some expensive options out there, but there also are some very inexpensive choices,” Motta adds.
He is working to develop a partnership with an organization that will continue to raise awareness locally, and will be presenting a program on how to get journalism students involved in testing water in their own communities at the Society for Environmental Journalists conference in October. Even before results were published, a colleague from the University of Missouri, Sara Shipley Hiles, heard about the project and began a similar investigation there.
“The plan is to develop a curriculum and best practices based on our findings,” Motta said. Over the long term, he and Hiles hope to build a curriculum for PBS Learning Media to help other journalism students develop investigational skills.
“We need to keep talking about this,” Perez said. “There are a lot of people who don’t understand the dangers of lead in their water, particularly when it comes to younger children. Increasing awareness – and then filtering water if necessary – can go a long way to reduce that damage.”