The Berrien County Health Department has greatly scaled back its program that gives water filters to Benton Harbor residents.
The department offered free lead filters to residents for a few years, starting when issues with lead water service lines in the community were first discovered. Now that those lines have all been replaced, Berrien County Health Department Emerging Threats Supervisor Dawn Poindexter tells us the eligibility for free filters has been changed.
“You would have to be a Medicaid-enrolled child younger than 19 living in the home, or a a Medicaid-enrolled pregnant person living in the home, and those residents would need to live in the city of Benton Harbor,” Poindexter said.
Anyone who has already received a lead filter can keep it, but the health department isn’t giving out any more filters or replacement cartridges, except to those residents just mentioned.
Poindexter says residents who still want to use lead filters, even though the lead lines have been replaced, can buy them at stores like Lowe’s.
The Berrien County Health Department will have a table set up at its Benton Harbor office on Thursday, January 4 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. for the residents who still qualify for free filters to come and pick one up.
The city of Benton Harbor has transitioned out of its lead response program and into the state’s Get Ahead of Lead strategy.
