How Safe is the Water We are Drinking?

Flint is not the only city that is now worried about the water that it is drinking. After the lead that was found in Flint’s water supply, many other cities have begun to wonder exactly how safe their water is. The answers will surprise you. Flint is not the only city in America that has large amounts of lead in its water. In fact, the EPA has found that there are quite a few cities in America that have large amounts of lead in their water supply and there are water treatment plants that are not treating the water in the best way possible. This is leading to more lead being found in the country’s water supply.

The Numbers Don’t Lie

There have been quite a few treatment plants around the country that have been failing to meet the requirements of filtering out the lead and copper in the water supply. In 2015, there were close to 214 different water systems that were not filtering their water correctly. Those water systems currently serve over 500,000 people. The treatment of this water helps that area stay clear of any health problems caused by the lead in the water. This wasn’t the only problem found. In other areas of the country, close to 6,000 water systems were violating the treatment laws in America. These water systems serve close to 20 million different people. This is some of the worst news that Americans could read this year. Having lead in our water supply will end up making quite a lot of people very sick and can even lead to cancer and other terminal illnesses. When these water systems were confronted about the violations, there were only a very small number that were fixed. 

The Flint Water Crisis

The Flint water crisis should serve as one example as to why we need to have clean drinking water. The number of people in Flint that have gotten sick from the water is large and continues to grow. There are many different water systems that now how the laws work and they have been dodging the laws for quite some time. This has now become an epidemic and it all began in Flint. According to the EPA, the states don’t really have much of an incentive to get the water cleaned up. There are plenty of penalties and fines that must be paid by those water treatment plants, but there is not a lot of punishment that they can get.

After all of the news of Flint, Congress is now talking about pushing new laws about treating water to make sure that it is drinkable. They want to put better laws about water testing in tact in order to make these water treatment plants take better care of the water and show some concern for those who are drinking it. There has also been talk of replacing different lead and water lines, but Congress knows that would cost the country quite a lot of money. The pipes in Flint are being replaced and if there are not many changes, we could see this in our future.