Battle Creek Times

Flint isn't the only city in the nation troubled by lead-contaminated drinking water, a pediatrician who helped expose the Genesee County city's water issues about four years ago said in a recent op-ed piece.

In her Aug. 27 New York Times editorial, Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, a Flint-area pediatrician, professor and author of “What the Eyes Don’t See: A Story of Crisis, Resistance, and Hope in an American City,” said concerns reach well beyond Michigan's borders.

Those problems are coast to coast in the U.S., Hanna-Attisha said in her editorial.

"Flint is an extreme case but not unique," the editorial said. "A troubling number of cities across the country – Pittsburgh; Chicago; Portland; Oregon – are struggling with elevated lead in their drinking water."

The water issues in the nation's major cities is "one of the legacies of the profit-driven and largely unaccountable lead industry that thwarted science, fought regulations and forced its use in our gasoline, paint and plumbing," the editorial said.