Virginia Tech Professor Marc Edwards, leader of the university’s Flint Water Study team, will announce the latest water testing results from homes in the Michigan city during a news conference at 11 a.m. Tuesday, April 12.

The announcement will be held in the Solitude Room of the Inn at Virginia Tech and Skelton Conference Center at 901 Prices Fork Road, Blacksburg, Virginia. The news conference will also be broadcast online from the university homepage​ (www.vt.edu).

Virginia Tech will provide photos and raw video from Tuesday’s news conference. In addition, file video and photos of the entire sampling process,  from Blacksburg to Flint, are available for media use, as are portraits of Edwards and team. Content from Tuesday’s news conference and the previous coverage can be accessed two ways:
 

  • Dropbox: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/l32vknrp39pqv6q/AAA5sQFvTaMqj9DHkUx1oO2fa?dl=0
  • FTP: Using an FTP software client (like Fetch), input the following information:
  • server: photoserver.unirel.vt.edu
  • user name: viscommdown
  • password: sh0wmevids (NOTE - the "0" is a zero)
  • Look for the "Marc Edwards-Flint Water Study" folder

 

Background

In August 2015, Edwards’ team collected samples from locations across Flint and found extremely high levels of lead and other contaminants in the city’s drinking water.

For six days last month, Virginia Tech students on spring break worked alongside citizen volunteers in Flint collecting water samples for another round of lead testing. The primary goal of this second round of testing is to see how lead levels in Flint have changed since appropriate corrosion control has been added to the system, and since the city has been reconnected to Detroit’s water source, Lake Huron.

Edwards, a leading expert in safe drinking water and the deterioration of the water delivery infrastructure in America’s largest cities, has worked to seek solutions to the crisis. He serves on Michigan Gov. Snyder’s advisory group and has testified multiple times before Congress on the crisis.

More information on Virginia Tech’s work in Flint can be found online:
http://www.vt.edu/flintwater
http://www.vtnews.vt.edu/articles/2016/02/021916-engineering-flintwater.html
http://flintwaterstudy.org/


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