The Los Angeles City Council has voted unanimously — 10-0 — to demand an immediate investigation by the Department of Water and Power (LADWP) and the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles (HACLA) after drinking water samples from the Watts neighborhood were found to contain elevated levels of lead. The discovery has drawn immediate comparisons to Flint, Michigan, where a decade-long water contamination crisis poisoned generations of children, and has put a national spotlight on aging water infrastructure in one of America's largest cities.
According to LAist, a nonprofit organization called Better Watts Initiative studied hundreds of water samples from across the Watts neighborhood and found varying levels of lead in 21 of them, including samples from public housing units. Five of those samples exceeded 15 parts per billion — the threshold at which the EPA's Lead and Copper Rule requires mandatory infrastructure repairs and public notification. The Wednesday vote was 10 to 0, with five council members absent, as LAist reported. The council directed LADWP and HACLA to immediately develop strategies to protect residents living in Watts.
