Mapping Lead-Free Water

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Sean Montgomery

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Aug 21, 2016, 1:22:31 PM8/21/16
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As I'm sure folks on this forum are aware, lead is toxic [1], particularly in children where it can cause permanent brain damage leading to reduced IQ, ADHD, symptoms of autism, and memory disruption, among many other problems. Recently lead has been showing up in our drinking water all across the country [2], and officials have been found systematically delaying and even falsifying public testing records [3].

We recently launched CitizenSpring on Kickstarter to provide an app that empowers individuals to test their water and crowdsource the data to see where it's safe for us and our families to drink and to hold our public officials accountable.

We have 10 days left on our Kickstarter campaign and very much need your support.

Please share our campaign with your friends (or strangers). 
Follow us on Twitter - https://twitter.com/citizenspring
Share with EVERYONE!

If you know anybody in the media/blogosphere, particularly that are into tech-mom/dad or social-good/citizen-science type projects or projects more generally that use technology to solve real world problems (and also think that kids getting brain damage is a bummer), please send them our campaign information. Please send an email to outr...@citizenspring.org if you'd like to connect directly about questions or potential partnership/synergy with projects you're working on.

Thanks, Sean

Citations:
KidPhoto2_2.2_crop_500x362.png
CitizenSpring How it works 01 500x242.jpg
CS_Press_Kit_CS3.pdf

Liz Barry

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Aug 22, 2016, 12:50:06 PM8/22/16
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Hi Sean, 
Great to hear from you! I"m copying Public Lab's water quality list. I'd be interested in hearing which off-the-shelf lead tests you chose to work with. 


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Liz Barry
director of community development
@publiclab

Love our work? Become a Public Lab Sustaining Member today!

On Fri, Aug 19, 2016 at 6:39 PM, Sean Montgomery <se...@connectedfuturelabs.com> wrote:
Hi Liz,

My friend Nick Normal suggested I contact you about a citizen science, social mission project my company is working on to help stem the tide of kids getting brain damage from lead in their drinking water.

I recently launched CitizenSpring on Kickstarter to provide an app that empowers individuals to test their water and crowdsource the data to see where it's safe to drink and to hold our public officials accountable.

As someone who's super connected in the DIY and open data community, I was wondering if you might know of folks in the media/blogosphere that are into tech-mom/social-good/citizen-science type projects or projects more generally that use technology to solve real world problems (and also think that kids getting brain damage is a bummer)?

I was also wondering if there were opportunities I should be exploring with PublicLab and OpenWater to combine our data/efforts in synergistic ways.

Inline image 1

With 12 days to go on our Kickstarter campaign, it's pulling out all the stops time!

Hope you're rockin' out!

Best,
Sean

Support CitizenSpring on Kickstarter
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter and Instagram
Share with EVERYONE!

--
Sean M. Montgomery Ph.D.
Founder, Engineer
Connected Future Labs


Sean Montgomery

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Aug 22, 2016, 2:46:51 PM8/22/16
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Hi Liz,

Great question about the lead tests used by CitizenSpring

For the long run we're building the platform to be test agnostic so that you could use any number of methods to test your water for lead, or other contaminants, in a manner that integrates the information for direct action as well as the ability to cross-validate the different testing methods using meta-analysis of the data.

In the short run, we chose the water-safe strip test (~$10) to offer the lowest barrier to entry to start empowering citizens to take back their water. This is a very basic lead test with a binary result (albeit we believe that we may be able to provide quantitative comparisons once our computer vision algorithms are trained up with sufficient datasets), but this low barrier to entry gives us the ability to cast the widest net to test more faucets and more often. Once we start to understand the big picture patterns we also aim to drill down into specific problem areas with more sophisticated testing protocols, something we hope to encourage both through the network of app users as well as by spurring on our public officials.

Thanks so much for your interest.
Please let me know if you have any other questions or if you think there is fertile ground for synergy with ongoing projects.

Best,
Sean


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chris echezabal

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Aug 22, 2016, 2:58:50 PM8/22/16
to plots-wat...@googlegroups.com, Sean Montgomery
Sean,

This looks really interesting. 

Are you looking at water data in specific areas of are you open to different geographies / cities?

Thanks!
Chris



Sent from my iPhone

On Aug 22, 2016, at 12:50 PM, Liz Barry <l...@publiclab.org> wrote:

Hi Sean, 
Great to hear from you! I"m copying Public Lab's water quality list. I'd be interested in hearing which off-the-shelf lead tests you chose to work with. 


--

Liz Barry
director of community development
@publiclab

Love our work? Become a Public Lab Sustaining Member today!

On Fri, Aug 19, 2016 at 6:39 PM, Sean Montgomery <se...@connectedfuturelabs.com> wrote:
Hi Liz,

My friend Nick Normal suggested I contact you about a citizen science, social mission project my company is working on to help stem the tide of kids getting brain damage from lead in their drinking water.

I recently launched CitizenSpring on Kickstarter to provide an app that empowers individuals to test their water and crowdsource the data to see where it's safe to drink and to hold our public officials accountable.

As someone who's super connected in the DIY and open data community, I was wondering if you might know of folks in the media/blogosphere that are into tech-mom/social-good/citizen-science type projects or projects more generally that use technology to solve real world problems (and also think that kids getting brain damage is a bummer)?

I was also wondering if there were opportunities I should be exploring with PublicLab and OpenWater to combine our data/efforts in synergistic ways.

<KidPhoto2_2.2_crop_500x362.png>

With 12 days to go on our Kickstarter campaign, it's pulling out all the stops time!

Hope you're rockin' out!

Best,
Sean

Support CitizenSpring on Kickstarter
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter and Instagram
Share with EVERYONE!

--
Sean M. Montgomery Ph.D.
Founder, Engineer
Connected Future Labs


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Patrick Hixenbaugh

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Aug 22, 2016, 3:10:54 PM8/22/16
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This is definitely interesting -- is there any way you could get it working as a webapp or on Android so that it would be open for everyone to use?

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Patrick Hixenbaugh
University of Maryland, Baltimore County, 2014.

Sean Montgomery

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Aug 22, 2016, 3:14:50 PM8/22/16
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Hi Chris,

Definitely open to different places. 2 things that tend to go with people around the globe are water and maps.

In the U.S., I think this map is a pretty good starting point
Inline image 1

Best,
Sean

On Mon, Aug 22, 2016 at 2:58 PM, chris echezabal <ceche...@gmail.com> wrote:

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Sean Montgomery

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Aug 22, 2016, 3:25:18 PM8/22/16
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Hi Patrick,

Absolutely we would like to expand to other platforms! 

We're focusing on a single platform as a matter of engineering resources. I see phones as a natural place to start because we can directly scan in test strip results and using computer vision to provide a level of data validation, assurance as well as a permanent record of the original test strip image. But I'd certainly like to see this expand to support other platforms if there's enough interest!

Best,
Sean

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Patrick Hixenbaugh
University of Maryland, Baltimore County, 2014.

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Liz Barry

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Aug 23, 2016, 9:41:15 AM8/23/16
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I'm interested in the threshold of the lead test itself, the water-safe strip test (~$10), which is described as a very basic lead test with a binary result.
I wasn't able to see from the the Amazon link what the threshhold is. 
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Sean M. Montgomery Ph.D.
Founder, Engineer
Connected Future Labs

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Sean Montgomery

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Aug 23, 2016, 10:55:24 AM8/23/16
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Hi Liz,

The water-safe strip test has a threshold of 15 ppb, which is the EPA action level for lead in drinking water. On the test that's indicated as line 2 being as dark or darker than line 1. 
Inline image 1
Based on our investigations with the test strips, I would cautiously postulate that using computer vision we can actually do a good bit better than a binary result once we have amassed a substantial database of cross-validated testing results and tuned the computer vision algorithms. Since we're storing the original test images in a database we can apply those algorithms retrospectively on the entire body of data collected. That's important because, while the EPA action level is 15 ppb, there is no safe level of lead and there is discussion in the scientific community that we should consider action at lower levels. 

But, as it stands today, the relatively few tests that are being run and reported to the public far too infrequently are often turning up results in the hundreds to thousands of parts per billion according to the almost impossibly difficult to use EPA SDWIS database. At these kinds of levels we could be talking about relatively few exposures leading to substantial accumulation of lead in the bones and other tissues of the body.

We consider these strip tests as a low barrier to entry leading edge to start shedding light on the scope and shape of the problem, from which we hope to dig deeper into more sophisticated/costly testing methods (e.g. atomic absorption spectroscopy). But if you have any suggestions for other tests that we should consider incorporating at the earliest stages of development, we would certainly be interested.

Best,
Sean



Sean M. Montgomery Ph.D.
Founder, Engineer
Connected Future Labs


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