A lack of accessibility to safe drinking water is a foreign concept to many people that live in developed countries. However, closer to home in the Denver community, there have been reports of unsafe levels of lead contaminants in household water systems.
In early 2020, news broke that Denver Water was mailing Brita water filters to Denver residents who were zoned in a lead contaminant water pipe area. Denver Water reported homes built prior to 1951 are more likely to have lead in their water due to older pipes. Denver Water launched a lead reduction program in late 2019 to address the problem with contaminated water. Denver Water estimates it would take about 15 years to replace all the water pipes that contain lead.
Lead is a ubiquitous element found everywhere in the environment, our body rejects lead due to high levels causing psychological problems. Lead causes many physiological problems in the human body including accelerated deterioration of chronic renal insufficiency, reproductive system in both males and females, synapse formation in the nervous system of developing children, and many more (Wani et al., 2015).
Many studies have concluded lead poisoning causes anemia by preventing heme synthesis by inhibiting porphobilinogen synthase and ferrochelatase formation into protoporphyrin IX (Cohen et al., 1981). In addition, it also causes cognition and cardiac problems by interfering with voltage gated calcium ion channels by acting like calcium analogue (Busselberg et al., 1993). As may be gleaned from our physiology studies, calcium is very important in skeletal muscle contraction; therefore, the impact of voltage gated calcium channels could cause paralysis in skeletal muscle, cardiac contraction could be restricted, and other neuronal problems. The long-term effect of drinking lead contaminated water for Denver residents could cause many developmental problems for children of Denver.
Denver Water is currently working on replacing the contaminated pipes but they estimate it could take up-to 15 years. Meanwhile, Denver Water continues to send Brita filters to Denver residents. However, while Brita claims it removes 99% of lead from the water, there is no scientific research conducted to study if Brita filter is as effective as it claims to be. I pose the question, through these two avenues is Denver Water doing enough to mitigate harm? Furthermore, are current and future actions going to be weighed against scientific best practices to reduce lead contaminants?
References
Büsselberg D, Evans ML, Haas HL, Carpenter DO. Blockade of mammalian and invertebrate calcium channels by lead. Neurotoxicology. 1993 Summer-Fall;14(2-3):249-58. PMID: 8247398.
Cohen AR, Trotzky MS, Pincus D. Reassessment of the microcytic anemia of lead poisoning. Pediatrics. 1981 Jun;67(6):904-6. PMID: 7232054.
Wani, A. L., Ara, A., & Usmani, J. A. (2015). Lead toxicity: A Review. Interdisciplinary Toxicology, 8(2), 55–64. https://doi.org/10.1515/intox-2015-0009
Hi Sabitra,
ReplyDeleteThanks for bringing attention to a critical ethical issue in Denver. On a more ethical side, I am fascinated by the interrelated implications of such knowledge about water conditions. This news report (https://glendalecherrycreek.com/2020/01/denver-has-a-lead-problem/) mentions that these higher levels of lead were particularly found across many schools in Denver. It seems like a Britta filter would be quite ineffective in such a large setting and alternative means are necessary.
It is particularly concerning to me because of the developmental processes occuring in young children and their susceptibility to poisoning based on smaller size (as you mentioned). I was surprised to read that not only are cognitive functions diminished, but that auditory function, puberty delays, anemia, and GI problems can also be attributed to lead (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5645046/). I am curious to know more about the regulations and testing in schools specifically since children spend so much of their time there and the correspondence to socioeconomic disparities related to lead exposure.
This is great information and necessary to talk about more often so people realize this is going on in Denver. Growing up I never cared what water I drank, at home we had unfiltered well water and when I was in public I would fill my water bottle from any sink. When I was about 18 a friend of mine who is a holistic healer and a doctor recommend drinking water that has been filtered more than tap water, of course the more levels of filtration the better. This doctor has helped many people recover from cancer and other diseases, the first thing he recommends is that his patients improve the water they consume.
ReplyDeleteFor the past four years I’ve been filling water jugs at King Soopers but similar to the point you brought up about Brita filters, I wonder if water from Glacier machines is filtered to the level they claim.
I’ve heard about a number of filtration systems that can be installed at home for a reasonable price. If it’s going to take Denver around 15 years to replace contaminated water pipes I wonder if they would consider installing better filters in areas that need it most. I know lead based paint is more harmful for kids so I wasn’t surprised to hear lead in water is more harmful for kids as well.
At the end of the day I’m grateful we have access to fresh water but that doesn’t mean we can’t try to keep improving the quality of our water.