Water authority’s disinformation campaign

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Investigative Post’s report two weeks ago showed how the Erie County Water Authority cut corners in its sampling program for lead in drinking water.

The water authority responded to our report with a campaign that included an email to customers, posts to Twitter and paid advertising on Facebook. The authority’s underlying message: The water is more pure than many brands of bottled water. Therefore, there is nothing to be concerned about.

We fact checked the authority’s campaign and found numerous misleading statements and unsubstantiated claims, some of which we discuss in this report aired Tuesday with our partners at WGRZ. 

“They’re trying to defend the indefensible,” Marc Edwards, a civil engineering professor at Virginia Tech University who played a critical role in uncovering the drinking water crisis in Flint, Mi., last year, told Telvock in a podcast interview.

Below is the raw video of Investigative Post’s attempt to interview water authority officials.