Ciara Meyer
Welcome back to the Bruno Brief. I’m Ciara Meyer, podcast host and section editor at The Herald.
Talia LeVine
And I’m Talia LeVine, podcast host and section editor.
Ciara Meyer
On this week’s episode, we spoke with Megan Chan about what she found when reporting on the (Rhode Island’s) Department of Health’s new lead pipe dashboard. This is Megan:
Megan Chan
I'm Megan Chan, I'm a metro editor at The Herald. I cover health and environment.
Talia LeVine
Megan discovered that out of all the counties in Rhode Island, Providence has the highest percentage of lead pipes. If lead pipes are so bad, why did Providence use so many?
Megan Chan
A lot of this just has to do with the older infrastructure in Providence. One of the sources that I talked to — (Associate) Professor (Joseph) Goodwill at the University of Rhode Island — explained that any cities that experienced exponential growth and industrialization during the early 1900s tended to use lead pipes, because lead pipes are very ductile. They’re very malleable. They actually make for really, really good material for pipes, except that they're incredibly toxic. So a lot of the cities you see that experienced growth during that time used lead pipes. And if you go further out west, you don't tend to see that as much.
There’s a lot of, certainly developmental concerns in terms of lead and drinking water, and it’s just good practice to not drink water with lead in it.
Ciara Meyer
So how does this impact us up on College Hill?
Megan Chan
By and large, Brown buildings mostly don't have lead. None of the residential halls have lead, as far as we're concerned, through both the dashboard and also some additional corroboration from Brown itself.
Ciara Meyer
Still, Brown does have a couple of lead pipes in various buildings.
Megan Chan
According to the dashboard, the (Sciences Library) is a building that uses lead pipes.
Ciara Meyer
The Urban Environmental Lab, Orwig Music Library, Sarah Doyle Center, West House, and John Carter Brown Library all also use lead pipes.
Megan Chan
There's a lot of factors that go into whether or not lead actually goes into your water. Even if your house is supplied by lead pipes, even if you spend all day in the SciLi basement, and the SciLi is supplied by lead pipes, that doesn’t always necessarily mean that there's lead in your water.
Talia LeVine
To ensure you stay safe, Brown has put some measures in place.
Megan Chan
They have checked lead presence in water in buildings that are supplied by lead pipes, according to Brown, any on-campus locations that have lead concentrations that exceed the limit that we need it to be safe. Brown has bottled water service, and they also have signage near sinks that tell you this water might contain lead and you shouldn’t drink from it.
Talia LeVine
If you are interested in checking out the Department of Health dashboard for yourself, it’s easily accessible on the department’s website.
Megan Chan
If you go on the dashboard, it’s basically just a map of Rhode Island. There are two ways of navigating it. Either you can zoom in and you can scroll to whichever location you're looking at, or you can manually input an address and it’ll just take you (there) directly. All pipes in Rhode Island, at least, are split along private and public ownership. So public is owned by your water utility at Brown, that's going to be Providence Water. Private is going to be by whoever owns the property. So for us, it's Brown.
Ciara Meyer
Within those options, the Department has categorized all of the pipes into four categories. If it’s lead, it’ll appear red with an exclamation point. Many other pipes are galvanized
Megan Chan
Which just means that the pipe is made of iron or steel and it's coated with zinc and sometimes those pipes can absorb lead, but they're not, in and of themselves, made of lead.
Talia LeVine
Thank you, Megan, for sitting down to explain all of this to us.
Now here is a recap of other important stories that happened last week.
Last Wednesday, President Christina Paxson P’19 P’MD’20 reiterated her commitment to the University’s mission and academic freedom while warning of potential staff layoffs and financial steps that could be taken as the federal political landscape continues to change. She also shared that Brown has reduced its PhD admission targets due to the University’s ongoing budget deficit.
In other news, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have been active in several cities across Rhode Island. Since President Trump took office in January, at least 3 individuals have been apprehended.
Also, members of activist group Students for Educational Equity re-introduced their bill to ban legacy admissions across Rhode Island into the State House. Several students testified on behalf of the bill in a hearing last week.
Ciara Meyer
Thanks again for tuning into the first episode of this season of the Bruno Brief. This episode was produced, edited, and scripted by Talia LeVine, Ciara Meyer, and Anisha Kumar. If you like what you hear, subscribe to The Bruno Brief wherever you get your podcasts and leave a review. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next week.
