Michigan city on edge as lead water crisis persists
ABC News
The water system in Benton Harbor, Michigan, has tested for elevated levels of lead for three consecutive years
BENTON HARBOR, Mich. -- Shortly after sunrise on a recent Saturday in Benton Harbor, Michigan, residents began lining up for free bottled water so they could drink and cook without fear of the high levels of lead in the city’s tap water.
Free water distribution sites are a fixture of life in the majority Black city in the southwestern corner of Michigan, where almost half of the nearly 10,000 residents live below the poverty line. For three years, tests of its public water system revealed elevated levels of lead.
Waiting for free bottled water is time consuming and some residents wonder why, in a state that recently dealt with the Flint water crisis, the problem wasn’t fixed sooner.
“It’s tiresome,” said Rhonda Nelson, waiting in line at a site run by the Boys & Girls Clubs of Benton Harbor.
