Program Overview
Ken Davis is joined by Chicago Tribune investigative reporter Michael Hawthorne, who has written extensively on the issue of lead in Chicago’s water. The lead is not in the water as it leaves the filtration plants or gets distributed beneath the streets, but it’s introduced when the water passes through lead pipes that connect individual buildings to those water mains. Until the mid-1980s, the City of Chicago mandated that these so-called service pipes be made of lead. Today, Chicago has the largest number of lead pipes of any large American city, and Hawthorne reports that when over 2,000 Chicagoans voluntarily had the City test their water, alarming numbers of homes reported elevated levels of lead in their drinking water. This program was produced by Chicago Access Network Television (CAN TV).