Lead Crisis Extends To Water On Capitol Hill

At a time when Congress is facing pressure to do more about lead in drinking water, Capitol Hill is facing its own lead crisis.

“Members of Congress and their staffs underwent blood testing on Wednesday,” The Telegraph reported.

“Congressional staff and others are having to drink bottled water around the Capitol after unsafe lead levels were detected by Capitol staff in the Cannon House Office Building [last week],” CNN reported.

“The discovery of unsafe lead levels at the Capitol comes as lawmakers are considering additional infrastructure spending that would help the residents of Flint, Michigan — who have been racked by lead in their water,” the report said.

A notice sent to congressional aides last month said that “House staffers who work in Cannon House Office Building may have been exposed to lead-contaminated water for as long as nine months,” according to Politico.

The alert stated, per CNN: "This week during Cannon House Office Building lead-in-water testing, the AOC (Architect of the Capitol) received results that indicate lead levels in some drinking water sources are slightly above the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standard.”

The notice indicated that ”the Architect of the Capitol found that 5 out of 26 drinking water areas that were sampled recently had 17, 18, 20, 25 and 56 parts per billion. That’s a 20 percent contamination rate, and the latter number — 56 parts per billion — is more than three times the safety limit,” Politico reported.

For customer taps, the lead limit set by the EPA is 15 ppb. Under the Lead and Copper Rule, “if lead concentrations exceed an action level of 15 ppb or copper concentrations exceed an action level of 1.3 ppm in more than 10 percent of customer taps sampled, the system must undertake a number of additional actions to control corrosion,” according to the EPA.

Rep. Dan Kildee, Democrat, who represents Flint, MI, connected the high lead levels in congressional offices to what is happening in his district.

“Congress has so far failed to act on Flint aid and now some Members of Congress have had their own water shut off due to high lead levels in their Washington offices,” the statement read, per Politico. “Lead is a dangerous neurotoxin and high levels of lead in water anywhere is a public health emergency. It is long past time that Congress get serious about this health threat. Helping Flint families ought to be as much of a priority as ensuring safe water on Capitol Hill.”

Some Capitol Hill staffers felt they did not receive prompt updates about the high lead levels. One aide, Anthony Foti, chief of staff to Rep. Dennis Ross, Republican of Florida, said his wife, another congressional aide, worked in the building with high lead levels and drank from fountains during her pregnancy, according to Politico. She gave birth in June. Ross’s wife was told by her pediatrician to get her lead levels tested immediately.

“We are concerned our newborn is at risk yet we receive no updates or guidance from the AOC,” Foti wrote in an email to the Architect of the Capitol’s office, per Politico.

“It is shocking that my wife and others have to go through this and it is upsetting that no screening centers were set up for high risk people such as pregnant moms in advance of sending this shallow missive this morning,” Foti wrote.

Mamie Bittner, a spokeswoman for the architect’s office, provided a statement.

“We continue our investigation into the source of the lead situation in the Cannon House Office Building, and although we don’t have all the answers yet, we wanted to get more specific information to you as we received it,” she said, per Politico. “We will continue to provide bottled water in the Cannon House Office Building until we have identified and resolved the problem.”

High lead levels are not the only water infrastructure challenges congressional offices have faced in recent weeks. A burst water line in Rayburn House Office Building resulted in flooding last month, CNN reported.

To read all of our lead contamination coverage visit Water Online’s Drinking Water Contaminant Removal Solutions Center.