Why Confusion mounts in another U.S. city grappling with lead in its taps more than twice what officials found during the Flint, Michigan, water crisis a decade ago.

Two officials in Syracuse were placed on leave after The Washington Post looked into how the city conducted lead tests.

In Syracuse, N.Y., there's growing concern about the safety of the water in existing lead pipes. Liam Rodewald conducts a scratch test to confirm that there is a lead service line in his basement on Monday. He has lived in the home for two years. (Amudalat Ajasa/The Washington Post)

By Amudalat Ajasa

November 1, 2024 at 4:57 p.m. EDT

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — After assuring residents here for months that their tap water is safe to drink despite earlier tests showing high lead levels, city officials announced Thursday that some of their earlier assessments were done improperly.

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The news in Syracuse — the latest U.S. city grappling with a crisis over contaminated drinking water — comes after officials first disclosed in August that samples collected in the spring found that dozens of homes had dangerous levels of lead exposure. The city said 10 percent of the homes it surveyed had levels more than four times the Environmental Protection Agency threshold that triggers government enforcement, or more than twice what officials found during the Flint, Michigan, water crisis a decade ago.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2024/11/01/syracuse-lead-tap-water-contamination/