(CNN) — It would be a nightmare for any city: A massive wedge of saltwater creeping up the Mississippi River, contaminating drinking water at treatment plants one-by-one and threatening the health of hundreds of thousands of residents. But it’s a looming catastrophe for New Orleans, where officials estimate that tens of thousands of the city’s...
Public health, infrastructure and farming can be impacted by saltwater intrusion. Experts say it’s a problem that could happen more frequently in the future.But it’s a looming catastrophe for New Orleans, where officials estimate that tens of thousands of the city’s water pipes are made of lead.
There is no safe level of lead exposure and even small amounts can be harmful, the US Centers for Disease Control has said. “New Orleans is an important reminder to lots of other cities in the South that you might not be thinking of the degree to which lead pipes are a problem – but they are,” Eric Schwartz, a professor at University of Michigan’s school of business and co-founder of BlueConduit, a water analytics company helping cities, including New Orleans, map their lead pipes, told CNN.
A lot is at stake for New Orleans and other cities racing to comply with new federal rules that aim toof the nation’s drinking water system, plus a total of $15 billion in new federal money in the bipartisan infrastructure law toLead “was so popular because it was so useful,” Danielle Land, a public health research associate and lead pipe expert at Michigan State University, told CNN. “We put it in everything, and now we don’t have the money to remove it from everything.
Dandridge said her organization is keeping an eye out for lead poisonings in New Orleans, especially because most residents don’t know if they have lead lines. The 305-year-old city has mapped the age of its water pipes, and the vast majority were laid between 1900 and 1919 – an era when lead was frequently used. Other pipes are made of clay or iron but may have lead soldering between the joints.
Grace Birch, a spokesperson for the city’s Sewerage & Water Board said the “painstaking” inventory should be completed by October of next year – a federal deadline to submit digital mapping of the city’s lead pipes.
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