Philadelphia Water Department Vouches For Safety Of Its Product
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Philadelphia Water Department officials are assuring residents that the city's drinking water is safe, after a British newspaper published a story over the weekend saying the department distorts lead testing.
The department's detailed rebuttal dismisses any comparison to the lead problem in Flint, Michigan..
The director of the Department's Lab Services, Gary Burlingame, sighs when asked about the article in Saturday's Guardian newspaper, charging that every major city east of the Mississippi has a lead problem:
"We live in the city, we care about the water, I drink the water. Believe me, if there was a lead problem, I would have been screaming years ago."
Burlingame says parts of the article are simply wrong; others oversimplify federal lead testing regulations:
"The regulation is probably the most complicated of federal regulations on drinking water. That makes the discussion difficult to have in a few sentences."
Bottom line, Burlingame says, lead in the city's drinking water averages six parts per billion, less than half what the EPA considers actionable, and bears no resemblance to the tainted water in Flint that inspired the Guardian article.
The EPA declined comment.