Lead in the Water Whistleblower Had FOIA Battle with District

dcogcadmin | May 24, 2010

An environmental engineering professor at Virginia Tech waged a years-long crusade to determine the validity of reports issued by the CDC that downplayed the incidence and effects of lead in the District’s drinking water.  At a hearing last week, the House Science Committee’s Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight Staff vindicated that crusade, confirming Professor Marc Edwards’ conclusions that the CDC’s reports were flawed.  Edwards’ investigation had included a drawn-out and expensive dispute about access to District documents containing data on lead in the water; the report produced for the subcommittee includes Edwards’ description

An environmental engineering professor at Virginia Tech waged a years-long crusade to determine the validity of reports issued by the CDC that downplayed the incidence and effects of lead in the District’s drinking water.  At a hearing last week, the House Science Committee’s Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight Staff vindicated that crusade, confirming Professor Marc Edwards’ conclusions that the CDC’s reports were flawed.  Edwards’ investigation had included a drawn-out and expensive dispute about access to District documents containing data on lead in the water; the report produced for the subcommittee includes Edwards’ description of the process (pg. 44): 

"I went though about 1.5 years with D.C. [Department of Health] with hundreds of pages of FOIA letters, appeals, etc. before the mayors [sic] office ordered them to produce some of the data."

More details about Edwards’ FOIA odyssey are available in his testimony before the Subcommitte (starting page 27).

Washington Post columnist Robert McCartney profiled Marc Edwards and took note of the FOIA battle as well.