Marc Edwards (born 1964) is a civil engineering/environmental engineer and the Charles Edward Via Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Virginia Tech. An expert on water treatment and corrosion, Edwards's research on elevated lead levels in Washington, DC's municipal water supply gained national attention, changed the city's recommendations on water use in homes with lead service pipes, and caused the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to admit to publishing a report so rife with errors that a congressional investigation called it "scientifically indefensible." He is considered one of the world's leading experts in water corrosion in home plumbing, and a nationally recognized expert on copper corrosion. He is also one of the whistleblowers in the Flint water crisis, along with Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha.
Edwards was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2007. The program cited him for "playing a vital role in ensuring the safety of drinking water and in exposing deteriorating water-delivery infrastructure in America’s largest cities." In 2004, Time magazine featured him as one of the United States' most innovative scientists.
Biography
Edwards, a native of the Buffalo, New York area, received a Bachelor of Science degree in biophysics from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1986. He received his Master of Science in 1988 and his Ph.D. in engineering in 1991 from the University of Washington.
Edwards taught at the University of Colorado at Boulder. In 1997, he joined the faculty of Virginia Tech's department of civil and environmental engineering. From 2001 to 2005, he served as president of the board of directors for the Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors. He delivered Virginia Tech's Graduate School Commencement address on December 19, 2008.
He lives with his wife Jui-Ling and two children Ethan and Ailene in Blacksburg, Virginia.
(2003 - 2010) Lead levels in Washington, DC water supply
Edwards's research in the mid-1990s focused on an increasing incidence of pinhole leaks in copper water pipes. Homeowners contacted him about the leaks, some of which were occurring 18 months after installation. After a century of using copper for water pipes, the expectation is that they will last for 50 years in residential applications. The District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority (WASA) funded Edwards's research into the cause of the leaks.
A group of Washington, DC homeowners asked Edwards to investigate their corroding copper pipes in March 2003. Suspecting the water, he tested for lead. The accepted limit for lead in drinking water is 15 parts per billion (ppb). Edwards's meter, which could read values up to 140 ppb, showed off-the-scale readings even after he had diluted the sample to ten percent of its original strength. The water contained at least 1,250 ppb of lead. "Some of it would literally have to be classified as a hazardous waste," he said. At the time, WASA recommended that customers in areas served by lead pipes allow the water to run for 30 seconds to one minute as a precaution. Edwards's tests showed that the highest lead levels occurred 30 seconds to a few minutes after the tap was opened.
When Edwards brought his concerns to WASA, the agency threatened to withhold future monitoring data and research funding from him unless he stopped working with the homeowners. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) discontinued its subcontract with him. With his funding cut off, Edwards paid his engineering students out of his own pocket so that they could continue the research.
After the Washington Post ran front-page stories in January 2004 about the problem, a Congressional hearing was held in March 2004 where Edwards testified. At the hearing, Edwards identified the cause of the readings as monochloramine, a disinfecting chemical that had replaced chlorine in the water supply in March 2000. Chloramine-treated water, he said, picks up lead from pipes and solder and does not release it, resulting in elevated levels. Chloramine also doesn't break down over time, as chlorine does, so there is always some in the water system. Edwards also testified that WASA's attempts to replace lead pipes with copper pipes could exacerbate the problem, because the copper increases corrosion of the old lead.