Lead Weight: How We Can Drop This Drinking Water Threat for Good

The PowerPoint for this event is available as a PDF. 

This event was part of Chicago Water Week. 

Lead poisoning is a serious public health problem that is even more prevalent in Black and Brown communities. In Illinois, our drinking water is threatened by at least 686,000 service lines—some 400,000 in Chicago alone—made of lead and likely many more, all piping potentially dangerous drinking water into homes and other properties every day. Clean, safe, affordable water should be a given but it’s not—and that needs to change. Join this webinar to learn about state and city solutions that would eliminate lead service lines forever while creating good jobs in the same communities that have been in harm’s way for far too long. We’ll also discuss national best practices for designing equitable lead service line replacement programs. 

Speakers: 

• Illinois Sen. Heather Steans (D-Chicago)
• Illinois Rep. Lamont J. Robinson (D-Chicago) 
• Josh Ellis, Vice President, Metropolitan Planning Council 
• Lindsay McCormick, Program Manager, Chemicals and Health Program, Environmental Defense Fund
• Andrea Holthouse Cheng, Deputy Commissioner, City of Chicago Department of Water Management