The Hurley Medical Center in Flint, Michigan released a study in September that confirmed what many Flint parents had feared for over a year: The proportion of infants and children with above-average levels of lead in their blood has nearly doubled since the city switched from the Detroit water system to using the Flint River as its water source, in 2014. "City officials have also said the use of corrosive Flint River water also damaged Flint's water infrastructure after state regulators never required the river water be treated to make it less corrosive." FEMA is now supplying bottled water to the city.
http://news.slashdot.org/story/15/12/15/2024229/flint-michigan-declares-state-of-emergency-over-lead-in-childrens-bloodSo from what I understand is the water is sufficiently lead free when it exits the treatment plant, but the city did not neutralize the PH of the water, so it is dissolving and forming lead compounds with the old lead plumbing solder in the water pipes that are in the city and homes and it is in the drinking water.
From Wikipedia:
In the mid-2000s, it became known for its high crime rates.[12] Since this time, Flint has been ranked among the "Most Dangerous Cities in the United States", with a per capita violent crime rate seven times higher than the national average.
So perhaps that has something to do with the lead in the water. GM closed several automotive plants in the 1980s that operated in Flint and the town went down hill after that.
One stat that someone posted in the comments on Slashdot was the average home was around 60 years old, so that predated a lot of the plumbing standards that restrict the use of lead.
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