Michigan City Advised By EPA to Forfeit Ownership of Water Facility Due to Lead Pipes

The city of Benton Harbor, Michigan is experiencing a water crisis and the Environmental Protection Agency is taking note.

The agency visited the city’s water facility and found several problems that could be responsible for the lead-contaminated water. As a result, the EPA is considering losing ownership of the facility, the Associated Press reported.

“The Benton Harbor people have suffered for too long,” Michael Regan, an EPA administrator, said in a statement.

Repairing Benton Harbor’s systems would require replacing around 2,400 pipes that could transfer lead into drinking water, a step many have taken, but the lack of resources made available to the city has resulted in little progress .

Public relations work, including town halls and public notices, began in 2018, and officials distributed water filters to residents in 2019. Despite slightly lower levels of lead, progress in containing the lead problem has not been fast enough for residents. In September environmental groups and Benton Harbor residents petitioned the EPA for immediate and comprehensive action.

“We couldn’t take it anymore,” said Rev. Edward Pinkney, one of the contributors to the petition.

More coverage from the Associated Press can be found below.

Benton Harbor, Michigan residents must use bottled water, normally distributed on October 21, 2021, to drink and eat on trips like the one mentioned above.
AP Photo / Charles Rex Arbogast

On a Saturday just after sunrise, residents began queuing for free bottled water so they could drink and cook without fear of the high lead content of the city’s tap water.

Free water distribution points are a staple of life in the black-majority city in southwest Michigan, where nearly half of its nearly 10,000 residents live below the poverty line.

Waiting for free bottled water is time consuming, and some local residents wonder why a state that recently dealt with the Flint water crisis didn’t address the issue sooner.

“It’s tiring,” said Rhonda Nelson, who was waiting at a location operated by Benton Harbor’s Boys & Girls Clubs. “I understand what Flint went through, I really do.”

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer has promised to spend millions of dollars to replace the city’s top service lines within 18 months – a breakneck pace for a process that often takes decades. For the time being, residents were warned not to use tap water to cook, drink, or make baby food.

Residents are concerned about what the elevated lead levels will mean for their families’ health. The problem is also uncomfortable and stressful. Drivers line up early at the water distribution points and pull people away from work and family. Bottled water must be used carefully so that it does not leak. Standing in the queue also has consequences – when idling, gasoline is consumed, which the driver has to refill more often.

LaKeena Crawford waited in line, worried about the consequences for her 8-year-old daughter who she had seen trying to turn the water on.

“I say ‘No!'” Crawford said, adding that she would like her daughter to understand that lead in water is dangerous. But: “I don’t want to scare you too much.”

Lead exposure can slow cognitive development, especially in young children, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and federal officials say no amount of lead in drinking water is considered safe to consume. In recent months, activists have pushed for more immediate, aggressive action, and the state has stepped up its response.

Some wonder if the problem would have been resolved faster if the residents of Benton Harbor looked more like the predominantly white residents of neighboring St. Joseph.

“Sometimes all you have to do is exclaim racism and that’s what it feels like,” said Ambie Bell as she helped distribute water to residents.

The lead water problem in Flint began when that city moved its water source to the Flint River as a temporary cost-saving measure without adequate treatment and the lead pipes corroded. But Benton Harbor’s water source, Lake Michigan, is considered safe and many other places get their water there, said city manager Ellis Mitchell.

“Our problem is clearly our own infrastructure,” he said.

“This has a sequential effect of decreased technical, managerial and financial performance of the waterworks due to underinvestment in manpower, equipment and training,” said Scott Dean, a spokesman for the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy.

Following the Flint water crisis in 2018, Michigan tightened requirements for lead in drinking water and boasted of having passed the nation’s strongest protection law. It set stricter requirements for testing water for lead and ordered that old lead supply lines be replaced.

The Michigan House of Representatives oversight committee held a hearing on Benton Harbor last month. Republican Committee Chairman Steven Johnson asked why the state’s recent response to the city’s flagship crisis felt like it had gone “from zero to 100 mph” when the problem had been going on for years.

Benton Harbor pitchers
The Berrien County Road Department helped provide Benton Harbor, Michigan with non-potable water in reused jugs. (AP photo / Charles Rex Arbogast)

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