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Texas A&M drinking water study finds lead, arsenic in Alamo, Progreso neighborhoods

By: Santiago Caicedo

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EDITOR'S NOTE: This story was updated to clarify that the Military Highway Water Supply Corporation serves the area where the study was conducted at. 

Texas A&M University researchers revealed the results of a years-long study into the levels of arsenic and heavy metals in the water.

They focused on two rural neighborhoods in Alamo and Progreso that are served by the Military Highway Water Supply Corporation. Researchers say 100 percent of the tap water in homes they tested had amounts of arsenic, nickel and uranium.

They found two percent of the homes in the Alamo neighborhood had lead and seven percent of homes in a Progreso neighborhood.

Alamo resident Jorge Garcia said the study went well, but the water quality is concerning, especially for the kids.

Garcia has lived in the Alamo colonia since the 80s. As a part of the study, he was given a water filter.

Texas A&M University Environmental Epidemiologist Garett Sansom is one of the lead researchers in the study. He says the levels of arsenic and heavy metals are concerning.

"One is there are no safe levels of arsenic levels, there are no safe lead levels period," Sansom said. "Arsenic and Uranium were found in 100 percent of all the water samples that we took."

Together with Methodist Healthcare Ministries of South Texas, community outreach groups collected tap water, blood, urine and toenail samples.

"We found that about three-fold increase of a diabetes, a significant increase in hypertension compared to the county or the state as a whole, but we also found higher rates of cancer and a significantly reduced physical health score," Sansom said.

According to the World Health Organization, long-term exposure to arsenic from drinking water has been associated with cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

Lead contaminants can lead to lifelong impacts to cognitive development.

"It's very likely that, for instance, lead is coming from older infrastructure, it's very likely that the arsenic could be coming from either infiltration or improper purification methods," Sansom said.

Researchers believe individual homes may have older pipes that could contain lead. When it comes to the arsenic levels, they believe that is the cause of soil leaking into pipes.

The levels of both arsenic and lead are too low to apply for federal funding.

"So it can be perfectly clean, leaving the purification plant and then by the time they get it into your home there could be lead contamination," Sansom said.

Researchers offered four recommendations for residents, use personal water filters, change and maintain faucets and filters, increase their intake of folic acid and vitamins B12 and D and run their water for two minutes before using it to help flush out possible contaminants.

Now the hunt is on to find solutions.

"Ultimately, we need better piping systems, and we need to make sure people's individual homes aren't the source of these contaminants," Sansom said.

Sansom says the study will now expand to Cameron, Starr and Willacy counties.

Watch the video above for the full story.

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