Milwaukee is taking action to reduce lead in the water, but for some families, the action is coming too late.
There are 70,000 lead service lines in Milwaukee. According to WisconsinWatch.org, the city required the use of lead service lines until 1948, and finally banned them in 1962. The cost of replacing all lead service lines in the city could be between $511 and $756 million dollars, and replacing them could take more than 100 years.
The city has taken several steps in the past year to reduce residents' exposure to lead in the drinking water, including creating a water quality task force which issued its final recommendations this month. Alderman Jim Bohl chaired the task force.
"The bulk of the recommendations related to water really harken around speeding up a time frame of replacement or lining of lead sewer lateral lines," Bohl says. "Insuring individuals with low incomes are made available to lead removing filterization and filters. Insuring that we have a strong public education piece that informs individuals of all aspects of lead."
But some people say the city's recommendations come too late. Nicole Albouras says she believes she had lead contamination in her water and it affected her physically.
"I have all the symptoms of what the studies show," Albouras says. "I have chronic bone disease, very bad to the point I was getting shots, I couldn't hardly walk. I have depression issues. Obviously this caused me a lot of anxiety."
Albouras says between the fixing the lateral and fines from the city, it cost her $ 257,000 to save her house. She was able to keep her house, but she decided to move out of Milwaukee and is now living in Sheboygan.
Naseer Al Mujahed lives on Milwaukee's north side. He says his four-year-old son seemed to have some developmental delays, so he took the child to the doctor and specifically asked for a blood test to test for lead.
"His readings came back at the number eleven, and obviously we're kind of oblivious to what that means," Al Mujahed said. "They don't want to see a child's lead above a three."
Mujahed says he's been trying to reach out to the city and state for help, but he hasn't had any luck.
"We were told, at least looking online, the City of Milwaukee makes it look as though someone is supposed to come out to the home when your child has a high level of lead. They have a phone number online but no one answers and there's no way to leave a voice mail. So I'm stuck, and this happened about four weeks ago, about a month now since we left the doctor and have been on this whole kick," Al Mujahed says.
Lead laterals aren't unique to Milwaukee. Other Wisconsin communities, like Racine, are also dealing with them. Melissa Warner is with the Sierra Club. "We have very old housing stock, as does Milwaukee, so a lot of our houses still have the older type of sittings and sodder and ways of getting the water into the house," Warner says.
The Racine water utility says up to 12,000 homes have lead water laterals. Warner says children need to be protected, because those exposed to high levels of lead are affected for their entire lives. "They're not going to have as well-paying or productive jobs as they become adults, so they're still going to cost us money in the social services network that many of these people, if they're severely affected, are going to need," Warner says.
Warner says she'd like to see Racine provide water filters for homeowners.
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