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PORTLAND, Maine, March 2, 2016—Sick with a form of cancer linked to arsenic poisoning, Richard Minoty had lived for 11 years in an apartment complex in Belgrade when his doctor reviewed test results of drinking water from Richard’s kitchen. The doctor issued a prescription within minutes: move to a new home.

“The doctor looked at how high the arsenic levels were, then looked up at me, and said, ‘Get out of there, today,’ ” Richard said. He and his wife moved to an apartment in Augusta in 2013,  but they still worry about friends and former neighbors who have been exposed to arsenic and have become seriously ill.

Top leaders of Maine health and education organizations are demanding the governor’s administration take action on behalf of Maine residents such as Richard and the thousands of children at risk from arsenic in drinking water.

In a letter sent this morning to Governor Paul LePage, they have asked for a comprehensive state plan, timeline, and benchmarks to boost the rate of well-water testing in Maine and ensure low-income families have access to water treatment.  

“Government leadership is essential to addressing this silent and preventable epidemic in Maine’s rural areas,” said Mike Belliveau, a letter signer and executive director of Environmental Health Strategy Center. “Without a plan of action to increase well-water testing and make sure all Maine families have access to safe drinking water, the LePage Administration is allowing horrific health consequences to children and families.”

Joining Belliveau in signing the letter are: Tina Pettingill, executive director, Maine Public Health Association; Janice Pelletier, president, American Academy of Pediatrics Maine; Claire Berkowitz, executive director, Maine Children’s Alliance; Tracy Gregoire, state director, Learning Disabilities Association of Maine; and Karen D’Andrea, executive director, Physicians for Social Responsibility Maine.

More than half of Maine’s residents drink water from wells, and the majority of those residents have not had their well water tested for contaminants. Many don’t know they need to. Most wells in Maine are drilled into bedrock, where arsenic and other contaminants occur naturally.

A U.S. Geological Survey concludes that 150,000 people in Maine are likely to be drinking water with unsafe levels of carcinogen arsenic, which is linked to skin, bladder, and lung cancers and harm to children’s developing brains. A Columbia University study of Maine schoolchildren in 2014 found that students with higher levels of arsenic in their water had average IQ scores five to six points lower than their peers.

Last June, Governor LePage vetoed proposed legislation to provide resources to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to increase well-water testing rates statewide. His administration said the state could use “existing resources.”

Legislators later learned the governor’s administration had decided not to reapply for a $300,000 federal grant Maine’s Department of Health and Human Services had been receiving to support statewide education efforts to boost well-water testing. David Sorensen, then a DHHS spokesman and now senior policy advisor to Governor LePage, said at the time that Maine should use federal funding “only when absolutely necessary.”

The Administration has announced no plans since to address this health crisis.

Signers of today’s letter believe action is overdue. They have stated in the letter their willingness to work with DHHS to craft a strong plan of action to reduce residents–especially children’s–exposure to arsenic in drinking water.

The letter draws a comparison between Maine’s contaminated drinking-water health crisis and the drinking-water crisis in Flint, Michigan. In both places, state government leaders missed the opportunity to intervene in a drinking-water crisis in which the burden of harm falls disproportionately on lower-income families.

According to data from more than 11,000 wells in 530 Maine communities, ​the U.S. Geological Survey study reports these​ are the top ten—but ​far from only—places in Maine where a high percentage of wells have been found to be contaminated by arsenic at levels that exceed federal limits for safe drinking water: 1) Manchester, 62 percent of wells; 2) Readfield, 49 percent; 3) Winthrop, 46 percent; 4) Monmouth, 45 percent; 5) Litchfield, 42 percent; 6) Gorham, 57 percent; 7) Blue Hill, 57 percent; 8) Surry, 51 percent; 9) Scarborough, 48 percent; and 10) Danforth, 42 percent.