A new report has found elevated lead levels in tap water across Watts, a south Los Angeles community that has faced decades of environmental racism, including in the drinking water of multiple public housing developments.
Researchers working with the Better Watts Initiative, a community environmental group, tested tap water at sites across the neighbourhood, and found lead, a neurotoxic metal, at or above US government limits.
The elevated concentrations were most often found in housing developments that have been plagued for decades by toxic contamination from lead and other pollution.
Researchers relied on community leaders to recruit residents to participate in the study, collecting water samples from across homes and apartments in the area. Tap water samples from Nickerson Gardens – the largest public housing development in Los Angeles – had lead levels above the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) limit of 15 parts per billion (ppb). But even exposure to lower levels of lead can cause serious health issues, and the EPA is in the process of reviewing its standards.
Samples from other public housing projects, apartments and single family homes were above 5ppb, which is the Food and Drug Administration’s standard for lead in bottled water. The American Academy of Pediatrics, meanwhile, says that children should not be exposed to concentrations above 1ppb.
The findings confirm that the water in Watts is one of many sources of the neighbourhood’s ongoing issues with lead contamination, which can cause serious health issues in both children and adults. “The reality of the situation is that no amount of lead is safe for the human body,” said Danielle Hoague, a doctoral student at the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability and volunteer with the Better Watts Initiative, who led the research, which was shared exclusively with the Guardian.
Lead is especially toxic to children, because it can hinder the development of their brain and nervous system. Pregnant women exposed to lead can develop complications including pre-eclampsia and eclampsia, and the exposure is linked to reduced foetal growth.
In Watts, an industrialised neighbourhood where tap water is far from the only source of lead contamination, the results are especially troubling, she said. The Jordan Downs housing project, for example, was built on the site of a former steel mill and truck and storage repair facility. When the area was being redeveloped in 2011, lead in soil there was detected at 22,000 parts per million, 275 times the threshold for cleanup in California.
Lead contamination has also affected the local high school, Jordan high, where authorities have found dust laced with dangerous levels of lead, arsenic and other heavy metals atop sports fields and inside classrooms. The community blames a nearby metal recycling plant, Atlas Iron and Metal, that regularly sends shards of metals zooming over its fence on to the high school campus – including on the first day of school this month. After a 2022 Guardian investigation, the owners of the plant were charged with 22 felonies and two misdemeanours, in a case that is still ongoing.
“And there’s also the legacy from when lead was in gasoline,” said Hoague – Watts lies along four major roadways and a major freight expressway. And there is lead paint in many of the neighbourhood’s older buildings. “The synergistic effects of all of these contaminants are what is really causing harm to the community,” Hoague said.
The researchers had provided a draft of their test results to the Housing Authority of Los Angeles (Hacla), which said that it had reached out to the Better Watts Initiative to coordinate further testing. “We then checked with all our property management and maintenance staff to see if any complaints regarding water quality had come into the offices at our properties over the past year and we have no record of complaints,” said Jenny Scanlin, Hacla’s chief strategic development officer.
Scanlin noted that Hacla participated in a water quality study at the Jordan Downs development and other public housing sites in Watts, and that the Los Angeles department of water and power had found no issues with the authority’s pipes, but did note issues at the water source that were addressed.
“Hacla has a record of responding to all residents concerns and complaints quickly and with deep care and concern,” she said.
But Yirk Turner, a longtime Watts resident who grew up in Jordan Downs but no longer lives there, said it was not a surprise that the tap water also contained lead. Residents have for years complained about the quality of their tap water, which sometimes comes out brown, black or yellow. The report led by Hoague also found elevated levels of iron and copper, metals which are not life-threatening but are a sign of corrosion in old pipes.
“A lot of residents drink nothing but bottled water,” said Turner, who buys three cases of bottled water every two weeks. “So, you know, the part-time job, the side job, all the money I make, I have to budget it so I’m able to get the water.”
Unlike other metals found in tap water, lead is colourless and odourless. Turner worries about how his own brain and body might have been affected by a lifetime of exposure. “I was born and raised here – and that means that I’ve been dealing with contaminated water all my life,” he said. “That could have affected me in a way that I’m not aware of and could have hindered my growth.”
The report’s findings are both troubling, and enraging, said Tim Watkins, president of the Watts Labor Community action committee. “I’m pissed,” he said. “Think about this 2 square-mile community – contaminated east, west, south, north – and there’s no big effort made to address the overarching neglect that has allowed this systemic rot to occur.”
The report was a community-lead initiative, said Watkins, launched “after trying and failing to get municipal action on the problem”, he said. Now that this community-led report has found lead, the city’s housing authority must immediately jump in to investigate further and remediate the issue, he said.
“Environmental justice is this long, tormented battle for acknowledgment of the problem, and then it’s an even longer struggle to figure out what to do,” Watkins said.
“We’re still in the acknowledgment stage,” he added. “But see, I’m 71 and I’m tired of constantly reminding people that this is important.”
This story was updated on 21 August 2024 with a statement from the Housing Authority of Los Angeles, and to clarify that Yirk Turner is no longer a resident of the Jordan Downs housing development.
