An environmental activist shows a piece of lead pipe taken from his Pilsen home during renovations. Two-thirds of children under 5 were exposed to lead in the water they drank at home, according to a study published in JAMA Pediatrics this week.
Shafkat Anowar/AP
Children younger than 6 are particularity susceptible to lead poisoning as their growing bodies absorb more of the naturally occurring element than adults do. Even smaller amounts of the soft metal in children’s blood can affect their intelligence, ability to pay attention and academic achievement, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Chicagoans were reminded of those well-known risks once again by the bleak findings from a just-released study conducted by Johns Hopkins and Stanford universities: Nearly 70% of those 5 or younger in Chicago — 68% — had lead in the tap water they drank at home.
Black and Latino children in the city were potentially exposed to the contaminated water at higher rates, according to the report that was published earlier this week in JAMA Pediatrics.
“The extent of lead contamination of tap water in Chicago is disheartening — it’s not something we should be seeing in 2024,” said the research’s lead author, Benjamin Huynh, an assistant professor of environmental health and engineering at Johns Hopkins.
But that reality is likely to be the case for many more years to come: The city, while well aware of the problem, has been moving at a lethargic pace to replace the harmful lead pipes that are all too common. The 400,000-plus lead service lines here are more than any other city in the country.
Huynh told Sun-Times reporter Brett Chase that Chicago’s water does indeed meet the standards set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. That still doesn’t mean the city’s youngest residents aren’t and won’t remain in deep water.
Huynh’s and his colleagues’ study should raise alarm bells at City Hall. Chicago might not be able to completely remove all its lead pipes in the 10-year period federally mandated for other municipalities. Money is tight, in spite of the billions of dollars in federal funds allotted for the task at hand.
But given the risk to children, the city can’t afford to wait the 40 years the Biden administration has given it to replace its lead pipes. Chicago needs to pick up the pace fast and implement a hastier timeline to limit the amount of lead young boys and girls can be exposed to. Four decades is too long to wait to keep children safe from danger when they’re drinking what they are often told is the healthiest beverage available.
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