Water Problems Prevail In Watts & Jackson

Why Do Communities Struggle To Find An Agency Or Elected Officials Willing To Admit Fault Or Help Them Clean Up Their Water?

Photo by Joseph Greve on Unsplash

A new study released this month reveals that about 4.4 billion people don’t have safe drinking water at home. That’s more than half the world’s population! What’s more is that the research indicates we had grossly underestimated how many people lack access to safe drinking water just a few years earlier.

What gives?

Traditionally, researchers gathered information through household surveys, but the updated numbers were thanks to geospatial data and satellites, along with more thorough questions about water quality.

When you think about these parts of the world without access to clean drinking water, you don’t typically think of neighborhoods in the U.S.

But increasingly, cities are struggling with the double punch of water infrastructure problems such as leaky pipes and chemical contamination, limiting access to safe water at home even in an industrialized country like ours.

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Let’s look at Watts, a majority Black and Latino neighborhood spanning two square miles in South Los Angeles. It’s one of the most polluted neighborhoods in California, according to the state’s Environmental Protection Agency.

Just last week, a community-led study was released, which found toxic levels of lead in the tap water.

“Many injustices in Watts are a result of malign neglect on behalf of elected leaders,” researchers said in the report.

Volunteers with the Better Watts Initiative, the environmental justice branch of the Watts Labor Community Action Committee (WLCAC), went door to door gathering more than 500 water samples, during a four-month period in 2023. Researchers discovered 21 samples with lead, and samples were taken from both single-family homes and public housing units.

But these levels aren’t really a surprise.

This community has an overall score in the 100th percentile and a cumulative lead pollution score of 91 coming from water, air pollution, soil, and paint, in the agency’s CalEnviroScreen 4.0, released in 2021.

The environmental justice tool is a screening methodology used to help identify California communities that are disproportionately burdened by multiple sources of pollution. Read the 207-page report on CalEnviroScreen 4.0.

Back in 2017, Tim Watkins told OurWeekly LA that he had reached a breaking point when it came to Watts’ toxic woes. At the time he said he had received dozens of verbal commitments and promises from peers, colleagues, and big shots who agreed to join the cause.

As the president and CEO of theWLCAC, Watkins has worked for decades to raise awareness about the many environmental hazards in Watts.

“I’ve gone to just about every public official I can think of to ask for help,” he told the publication. “They won’t help me!”

He described problems in his community, including high infant mortality, poor literacy, and chronic recidivism.

“Watts has been poisoned, and I believe with all of my heart that it contributes to some of the turmoil in this area.”

Lead is a nervous-system toxin that according to our own regulatory agency (the EPA) has no safe level of exposure. Lead in drinking water can cause everything from stomach pains to permanent brain damage. It inhibits the bodies of growing children from absorbing iron, zinc and calcium, minerals essential to proper brain and nerve development.

Childhood lead poisoning can lead to health effects later in life, including ADHD, delayed learning, and lower IQ (which will impact school performance), developmental problems with their offspring, hypertension, and reproductive problems.

Medical research has established a connection between early childhood lead exposure and future criminal activity, especially of a violent nature.

“It is absolutely unacceptable for families to not have access to safe, clean drinking water,” Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass wrote in a statement to the local news station. “I will do whatever it takes to ensure Angelenos are safe including calling the head of the EPA if needed. HACLA and LADWP will take immediate next steps, including testing drinking water at HACLA housing units in Watts and coordinating with the Housing Department and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to assess additional testing needs.”

Sorry, Karen. I know it was historic for you to make history in Paris by becoming the first Black woman mayor to receive the Olympic flag at a closing ceremony of the Olympics. But maybe less travel and a little more listening to your constituents?

To be fair, it’s not any one mayor’s fault.

In Flint, Michigan, lead was leaching into the water supply for almost two years and public officials said everything was fine. Former Flint mayor Dayne Walling went as far as to drink the contaminated water on local TV to assure residents it was safe to drink.

The EPA should be testing regularly in communities like Watts (and Flint, Newark, and so many others). But somehow it’s always the communities who have to beg and plead for help.

A big part of the problem is that we don’t have an MCL for lead. That’s an enforceable regulation that we call a maximum contaminant level. We have a TT—a “treatment technique” regulation better known as the Lead and Copper Rule.

Policymakers need to reject this “test-and-fix paradigm,” and enact long-term solutions for lead in drinking water. We need more intervention when even very low levels of lead are detected in neighborhoods and schools.

In May, the Biden administration announced $3 billion in federal funding to help all 50 states remove lead pipes from their drinking water systems.

Schools continue to find toxic levels of lead in their tap water, as well.

Last week, the EPA announced $26 million in new funding to test for and remove lead from water in schools and child-care facilities.

While there remains no national requirement to test for lead in school water, states and localities that choose to test often find it. Lead in schools is frequently caused by lead-laced plumbing and fixtures, whereas homes usually become contaminated by lead service lines, which are the narrow pipes that serve households and small businesses.

I’m sick of agencies and elected officials playing this game of “hot potato.” People need safe drinking water. It’s not about whose at fault; it’ about fixing these problems before they begin.

In May 2016, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power crews tested for water contamination within neighborhoods and schools in South Los Angeles, including Watts.

These inspections followed complaints from both residents and a plea for action from a city council member. According to media sources, murky brown water had been intermittently flowing from taps in and around Watts.

A community survey conducted in 2017 then found that 90 percent of residents in Watts reported that they purchase bottled water for consumption due to poor tap water quality; and 40 percent used water filters at home

This week, Los Angeles City Councilman Tim McOsker called for immediate testing, reporting, and remediation to address the alarming levels of lead contamination in drinking water found in homes in Watts.

I appreciate his swift call for action, but these water problems are not new. While I commend the citizen science and great work conducted by the Better Watts Initiative, it should not be up to citizens to continually ask for clean water.

My hope is that this time the agencies responsible for fixing these water problems will listen. We need more enforcement to get the job done. The funds are there.

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal dedicated an unprecedented $15 billion to removing lead from drinking water. This funding was intended to encourage federal, state, and local governments to use every tool to deliver clean drinking water, replace lead pipes, and remediate lead paint. Let’s go.

To learn more about the Better Watts Initiative study and to see where the tap water samples were collected from, click here.

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To further solidify my point, let’s turn to Jackson, Mississippi.

The Mississippi State Department of Health (MSDH) did not consistently enforce the Safe Drinking Water Act or provide adequate oversight for the Jackson public water system, according to a new report by the EPA inspector general.

In 2015, test results for lead in Jackson’s water system showed samples above the legal limit, of 15 parts per billion. Months later, the state Department of Health found that nearly a quarter of homes it tested had lead levels above 15 ppb. 

Grist.org reports:

In the summer of 2015, officials in Jackson, Mississippi sent the state a series of water samples taken at different locations throughout the city’s public water system. Residents had complained for weeks about the low pressure in their taps, and the city wanted to test the distribution system to check for possible contamination. Sure enough, regulators in the MSDH identified elevated lead levels in the water supply. But rather than immediately informing the city about the public health risk, they sat on the data for half a year. Unwittingly, residents continued to drink toxic water. 

EPA officials were unaware of the problem until they inspected the city’s water system in 2020.

“Although the EPA became more involved and proactive at the site, Jackson experienced a series of extreme weather events, and residents were continually placed on boil water notices, which culminated in failures of the water distribution system in February 2021 and August 2022,” according to the report.

Sounds like a huge communication breakdown.

We wrote about the water problems in Jackson in 2022.

In another game of toxic “hot potato” both city and state officials have blamed each other for the water issues.

Grist reports:

The state government has long blamed city officials for mismanaging the system and violating the Safe Drinking Water Act. City office holders have blamed the state for rejecting their repeated requests for funds to improve the failing infrastructure. In May, a report from the Project for Government Oversight found that EPA regulators had for years turned a blind eye to Mississippi’s routing of federal dollars away from Jackson.

This new report blames the health department.

After decades of water problems, a federal appointee is now managing the water system in Mississippi’s capital city.

It was one of the largest federal interventions of a local utility system in U.S. history.

Edward "Ted" Henifin was appointed as an interim third-party manager of the Jackson water system and Water Sewer Business Administration, the city’s water billing department. He later was appointed to oversee its wastewater treatment operations as well.

The engineer served in Virginia for decades before coming out of retirement to take on this new role.

Since then, he has taken on many improvements such as plugging more than 5,000 leaks in city water supply lines that lost an estimated 5 million gallons per day, and repairing more than 200 leaks in the city wastewater treatment system. He also managed repairs to the city’s two massive water treatment plants, including one that is nearly a century old. 

The road will be long to rebuild trust with residents. At some point, a local will need to come back to manage the city’s water.

But my point again is to stop with the finger pointing. Listen to the people. Water problems are complex, but they only become worse with denial, cover-ups, and corruption. The truth always comes out. We need more water heroes willing to do the hard work now.

Our country is full of aging water systems. We need to stop neglecting infrastructure, as it can lead to massive contamination or no water at all.

We’ve got to look at the big picture. It’s not just one small community here or there with water problems. The problems are everywhere, and I know this because I am the one receiving the calls and emails from the people who feel the most hopeless and helpless.

It’s not just a problem in our country. People distrust drinking water worldwide. An international survey found that more than 50 percent of those polled globally said they expected to be seriously harmed by their drinking water within the next two years.

“If we think our water is unsafe, we will avoid using it,” said senior author professor Sera Young, global health scientist at Northwestern University, in a statement. “When we mistrust our tap water, we buy packaged water, which is wildly expensive and hard on the environment.”

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Keep the conversation going in the comments below. How much confidence do you have for your drinking water these days? Does it feel safe?