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- Elon Musk donated $480,000 in 2018 to fund new filtration systems for schools in Flint, Michigan.
- Three years later, the filters are in the final stages of testing before they're ready for use.
- Water in Flint was contaminated with lead in 2014 and was fixed by 2019.
Elon Musk donated $480,000 in 2018 to fund new filtration systems for schools and administrative buildings in Flint, Michigan. Almost three years later, they're in the final stages of production, flint beat reports.
Laura Sullivan, a mechanical engineer from Kettering University, gave an update on the project at a recent school board meeting, the website reported. The next step is to connect the filters to the district's plumbing and test the water coming out of the fountains for lead and other bacteria.
Flint has struggled with toxic contamination since 2014 when the city switched its water supply from Lake Huron to the Flint River in an attempt to save $12 million annually. Water from the Flint River began eating away at the pipes causing catastrophic levels of lead to enter the water, making people sick.
The level of lead in the drinking water in Flint was around 4,000 parts per billion. The US Environmental Protection Agency states that lead levels in water higher than 15 parts per billion require immediate action to stop the exposure of lead poisoning.
In 2016, it was reported that lead levels dropped to 12 parts per billion, but many citizens remain skeptical if the problem was truly fixed.
Helping provide clean drinking water isn't the only side project that Musk has taken on aside from his duties at SpaceX and Tesla. In addition to his clean energy goals. Musk has also voiced ideas about ways to solve the housing crisis, build tunnels underground to fix gridlock traffic, help those affected by California wildfires, and more.