Congresswoman Cheri Bustos met with city officials last Friday to discuss reports of high lead levels in Galesburg children as a result of tainted drinking water.
“I walked away from my meeting, actually with both the city officials and with the health department, more concerned than I walked into it,” Bustos says.
The East Moline Democrat says she is not satisfied with the city’s handling of the situation.
Since last week’s investigation by the Associated Press showed Galesburg had consistently exceeded Environmental Protection Agency action standards since 1992, the city engineer, manager and mayor all said residents with lead pipes in their homes should run their water for 30 seconds before drinking as a suggestion to address the problem.
“You’ll never hear me say to any family, ‘oh, just run the water for 30 seconds, and then it’ll be OK for your kids to drink it,'” Bustos says. “I think that is an unacceptable response to give to any family.”
In the last week, Bustos and nearly 100 other members of congress have requested $2 billion from next year’s federal budget to help pay for the replacement of lead water lines in the country through the Safe Drinking Water State Revolving Fund.
In response to claims made in the original AP report suggesting one in 20 children under the age of 6 in Knox County had high levels of lead in the blood, Director of Health Protection Sam Jarvis says the numbers refer to a sample of 836 children and are not necessarily indicative of all of Knox County.
