By Robert Miranda
Editor’s Commentary
The City of Milwaukee Health Department has issued a letter opposing a resolution by Ald. Tony Zielinski that would direct the Health Department to “immediately recommend that to avoid potential lead exposure, women of childbearing age and children under the age of 6 should not drink unfiltered water and that children under the age of 6 should be tested for lead.”
Why should city of Milwaukee residents accept the rational of city elected officials or city bureaucrats opposing the passage of this resolution?
It was only last year, during the Milwaukee mayoral election, that Mayor Barrett refuted the notion that our water was contaminated with lead because as he told the city, our corrosion control measures are working perfectly. In fact, the mayor’s health commissioner, Bevan Baker, stated in an interview on CBS 58 that he can guarantee that lead water does not come out of the taps in our homes (coincidentally, up until a few months ago you could Google for that interview and hear the commissioner make this announcement. Now the interview appears to have been taken down from CBS 58 archives).
Last year The Guardian newspaper wrote an article identifying 33 American cities cheating when testing for lead in water. Yes. Milwaukee was identified as one of those cities cheating.
The article mentioned that several cities do correctly follow EPA guidance on testing, according to documents provided to the Guardian, Milwaukee was NOT one of them.
Fast forward to the fall of 2016 and suddenly, the Mayor and city health officials are telling Milwaukee water consumers that they should buy filters to protect their families from lead in the water flowing through lead service lines.
A few months later, in an interview with the Milwaukee Magazine in an article entitled “Lead Dread” the city health commissioner when asked about his statement on CBS 58 regarding no lead in the water coming from our taps “Baker most likely misspoke in stating that ‘Our water is safe. There’s no lead in the water that comes out of your tap,’ which is false.”
“Baker said he was attempting to refer to the water that leaves the Milwaukee Water Works Water Treatment Plant (which is lead free) and is subsequently contaminated inside what, during the TV interview, he referred to as ‘old infrastructure'”.
So our “old infrastructure” is poisoning our children! Why in the world would the health department and some so-called medical experts tell us the Zielinski resolution is not needed?
But let us not forget that it was only nine months ago that Marquette University hosted a water summit where they invited world renowned expert Dr. Marc Edwards to speak on this matter about lead in water. Dr. Edwards raised a few eye brows among the conference goers after he revealed that the City of Milwaukee “historically has been a world leader covering up lead in water problems”.
Now the city propaganda machine is turned up to go after a resolution calling for lead transparency and the city’s only daily newspaper, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, rather than sift and winnow for more opposition voices avoids those opposing the city’s cover-up and reports a one sided pro-City Hall propaganda piece.
Sorry, we will not be hoodwinked, bamboozled, lead astray or run amok! We are simply not going for it.
Remove the lead pipes. Stop covering up lead poisoning in Milwaukee. Nothing less will do!
