Milwaukee Mayor Urges Homeowners To Use Water Filters

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett is urging residents in about 70,000 households to use water filters to protect them from the effects of lead contamination.

"I strongly urge anyone who lives in a home built before 1950-'51 to get a filter," Barrett said at a public forum on drinking water, per the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

“It's not the city's water supply or the water mains that are the problem — it's the laterals — the pipes that come from the water mains to the homes themselves that may contain lead,” Fox 6 Now reported.

Virginia Tech Professor Marc Edwards, one of the nation’s top authorities on lead-contaminated drinking water, contextualized the conditions in Milwaukee: "There's no cause for alarm. Milwaukee is not another Flint, but people are realizing the existing lead is not protectant of public health. Especially if you have a lead pipe or infants eating formula. We have to do a whole lot better."

Replacing laterals could take several decades, according to the report.

“Edwards said that the costly replacement of all lead laterals in Milwaukee could take 20 or 30 years, or longer. As an interim measure to protect public health, Edwards recommended use of filters at kitchen taps to remove the lead,” the report said.

“Filters certified by testing laboratories to remove 98 percent or more of lead particles are sold at hardware stores at a cost of $30, he said. Use of the filter will prevent lead poisoning until lead water pipes can be replaced throughout the city,” the report continued, citing Edwards.

Edwards made a call for water-filter use. "If it were my family living in that house, I'd recommend they'd use bottled water for cooking or drinking or the lead-certified filters that go on the end of your faucet," Edwards said, per the report.

Wisconsin policymakers say the state must be willing to shell out cash to stave off lead threats for residents. Top Milwaukee and state officials agree “that Wisconsin must move as quickly as possible to replace all of the estimated 176,000 lead pipes providing drinking water to homes and businesses in the state,” Wisconsin Watch, an investigative news publication, recently reported.