A UNO expert on water says the crisis that has sickened thousands of Flint, Michigan, residents is unlikely to happen in other cities.
When Flint switched its water source in April 2014, the water was eight times more concentrated with chloride than the previous source the city used. Failure to properly treat the water to account for that contamination caused the system of iron and lead pipes to corrode. Toxic levels of lead got in to the water system.
Dr. Alan Kolok teaches biology and environmental health at UNO and UNMC, and is director of the Aquatic Toxicology Laboratory. He says the lead in Flint's drinking water will have a permanent, damaging effect on the brain development of that city's children.
"That process is impaired with lead. And it's impaired in a non-reversible situation, so those children will have impaired, will experience neuro-toxicological damage effectively for the rest of their lives."
Kolok says the Flint water crisis could've been avoided if leaders asked key questions before switching from one water source to another. He says such a situation is very unlikely to happen in Omaha, where the water has a low saline concentration and is properly filtered.