US Attorney Investigating NYC Lead Tests In Drinking Water

[hatrack]

"Federal prosecutors are investigating whether New York City misrepresented the lead levels in its drinking water, city officials said yesterday.

The United States attorney's office for the Southern District of New York issued a subpoena to the city on Oct. 6 for its federal and state filings concerning lead levels, said Kate O'Brien Ahlers, a spokeswoman for the city's Law Department.

The investigation comes in response to an article in The Washington Post last week alleging that several dozen water systems around the country manipulated test results for lead that they sent to the federal Environmental Protection Agency, violating federal rules and giving the public a false sense of security about the quality of the drinking water.

EDIT

Had the city submitted its entire data set over the past four years, he said, the city would have had a failing grade under federal regulations for safety in 2001 and 2002. The failure would not necessarily have been because of a dangerously high citywide lead level, but rather because a few of the missing tests had unusually high results and would have raised the city's average lead levels above federal limits."

EDIT

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/15/nyregion/15water.html?oref=login&pagewanted=all