Chicago's Got a Lead-Contaminated Drinking Water Problem of Its Own

As Flint’s water crisis stretches on, anxieties about lead are rising across the U.S. In Chicago Thursday, a group of residents filed a class-action lawsuit against the city, claiming that it knowingly initiated construction projects that amplified risks of toxic levels of the brain-damaging metal in residents’ tap water, and that the city failed to warn residents adequately.

“We trusted the city,” one plaintiff, Tatjana Blotkevic, whose husband experienced heart attack-like symptoms during and after a city construction project near their home, said in a press release. “It’s the kind of thing you just assume—that your tap water is safe to drink and that your city has done its due diligence to prevent a health hazard like toxic levels of lead.”