High Lead Levels Registered In Chicago

Lead appears to be a pervasive problem in Chicago drinking water.

The city offers ratepayers free lead-testing kits, and hundreds of residents have followed up on that offer, The Chicago Tribune reported.

“A Tribune analysis of the results shows lead was found in water drawn from nearly 70 percent of the 2,797 homes tested during the past two years. Tap water in 3 of every 10 homes sampled had lead concentrations above 5 parts per billion, the maximum allowed in bottled water by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration,” the report said.

“Alarming amounts of the toxic metal turned up in water samples collected throughout the city, the newspaper’s analysis found, largely because Chicago required the use of lead service lines between street mains and homes until Congress banned the practice in 1986,” it continued.

Chicago is facing criticism that it has not been completely transparent about its lead levels. Once the lead-testing results “started coming in, the city buried them: Chicago hadn’t updated the city-run website tracking the results of its own tests in more than six months — until the Tribune started asking questions,” VICE News reported.

Megan Vidis, a spokeswoman for the Chicago Department of Water Management, provided a statement to CNN, noting that the city consistently beats EPA standards for water quality.

The department "takes a proactive approach to mitigating lead in our water system by introducing corrosion control into water mains; providing residences and businesses with complete instructions for flushing whenever there is any water infrastructure work being done in the vicinity; and free lead testing of drinking water," the statement said.

Jenny Abrahamian is a Chicago resident who had high lead levels in her home.

“Abrahamian was so alarmed by the results — the first sample she collected contained 250 ppb of lead — she invested in a $1,100 system that filters every drop of water coming into her home, as well as an additional reverse-osmosis filter at her kitchen sink for drinking water,” The Chicago Tribune reported.