Harris Fires Back at Providence Water Supply on Lead Info
Wednesday, July 12, 2017
Former Chair of the Providence Board of Licenses Johanna Harris -- who writes the blog "Providence Rules" - has fired back at Providence Water's response to her recent post.
Harris had written "Lead in Our Tap Water: Providence RI versus Flint MI" to which Providence Water called Harris' findings "not representative of [our] data."
On Tuesday, Harris wrote the following response:
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTProvidence Water has tapped Dyana Koelsch of DK Communications to respond to my July 3 blog post Lead in Our Tap Water: Providence RI versus Flint MI. In an interview published on July 11 in GoLocalProv, Koelsch noted, “The conclusions she has drawn are not representative of the data, Providence Water’s findings or its ongoing activities regarding lead.”
Koelsch’s defense offers no new analysis of her client’s own database of tap-water lead measurements to show where I supposedly went wrong. Nothing in her defense rebuts my conclusion that certain sections of the city, especially the area around Ward 2 on the East Side, have levels of lead in first-draw samples of tap water comparable to those published for Flint, Michigan.
Nothing in her response contradicts my conclusion that the official statistics reported by Providence Water in its annual water quality reports obscure the seriousness of the local problem by combining Providence with neighboring Cranston, Johnston and North Providence.
Nothing in her response rebuts my conclusion that, while there is evidence of an improvement during the past 2–3 years, Providence still appears to be far from solving a serious public health problem.
Read Harris' full response HERE.
Related Slideshow: Lead Poisoning for Children — Hot Spots in RI
Source: State agencies or CDC. Some states did not include data for census tracts and zip codes if the testing numbers were small, usually below five, to protect patient privacy. These areas appear as if no one was tested.
Data by zip code: RI
Years: Data 2005-2015
DATA: Developed by Reuters
Zip codes with <100 children tested not included in ranking.
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