Council probes lead in city’s water supply

Yawu Miller

In the battle against lead poisoning, Census Tract 917 is ground zero.

There, in the Bowdoin St. area of Dorchester, Alberto Pina, an outreach worker for the Bowdoin Street Health Center, is charged with getting the word out to residents that their children have the highest lead poisoning levels in the city.

“There’s a large community of immigrants with limited English skills,” Pina said. “People who work two jobs. There’s not much information in their hands. They’re not exposed to what’s going on in their own community.”

The health center tested 350 children in the Census tract for lead poisoning and found 34 had levels higher than 10 micrograms per deciliter — a level that puts children at risk of permanent neurological damage. Many more children were found to have levels higher than five micrograms per deciliter.

“We have a big job to do,” said Pina.

Dorchester, Roxbury, Jamaica Plain and Mattapan have high concentrations of lead service lines piping water to residences. Those lead lines are widely thought to be a prime culprit in the elevated lead levels that are prevalent in inner city neighborhoods like the Bowdoin St. area of Dorchester.

Following on the heels of media reports on the prevalence of lead service lines, City Councilor Felix Arroyo held a council hearing on the issue. At a press conference before the hearing, Arroyo joined environmental activists calling for new guidelines for lead poisoning that would lower the allowable levels of lead in water.

Arroyo also called for free lead guides for consumers and free testing — a resource that Cambridge residents currently enjoy.

Speaking in favor of more stringent standards, Harvard School of Public Health professor Howard Hu said the current lead safety levels are 20 years behind the current research on lead poisoning.

“There is a public health imperative to keep exposure to lead as low as possible,” he said.

Municipal authorities have known as early as the 1920s that lead pipes can contribute to lead poisoning. But in Boston and elsewhere throughout the country, municipal authorities have been slow to remove lead from their water systems.

A Washington Post investigation earlier this year found that major cities, including Boston, have done little to test for lead or inform the public of elevated lead levels.

The Conservation Law Foundation released a map of the city showing high concentrations of lead service lines in Dorchester and other inner city neighborhoods, but the Boston Water and Sewer Commission has not disclosed the location of lead public service pipes.

Even without the use of lead service pipes, lead can still enter a building’s drinking water through lead solder in copper pipes and brass fixtures, which leech lead into drinking water when they come into contact with chlorine and fluoride, chemicals which are added into the city’s water supply.

Groups including the Conservation Law Foundation and the Lead Action Collaborative will meet with Arroyo today to talk about next steps. Arroyo says he plans to file an ordinance next year aimed at lowering lead levels in the city’s water supply.