By now we’re used to Congress’s abysmal public approval ratings and the complaints of our fellow citizens. “They’re doing what with my tax dollars!?” they exclaim. “Geez. It’s almost like there’s something in the water.”
Well, actually, there is something in the water.
Tuesday night, the superintendent for the House of Representatives office buildings (where your congressman works) emailed an ominous warning: Don’t drink the tap water, Politico reported.
Cannon is one of the three House office buildings for members of Congress. The other two are Longworth and Rayburn.
In March, InsideSources reported that Marc Edwards, the environmental engineer who exposed lead-poisoning in Flint, Michigan, suspected Washington’s water system was worse. The city never fully updated its water system after a lead-contamination crisis years ago, he said.
With Capitol Hill awake to the issue, now might be a good time to revisit the work of Dr. Jerome Nriagu. In the 1980s, he studied the decadent diets and personalities of emperors like Caligula and Nero, finding “strong support for the hypothesis that lead poisoning contributed to the decline of the Roman Empire.”
Of today’s news, Dr. Nriagu tells me, “Perhaps things like that are needed to bring the attention of the legislators to lead as a public health hazard.”
