Continue to Be Afraid Until Further Notice: By now, Osama bin Laden's body lies somewhere near the bottom of the Arabian Sea, having been deposited there off the U.S.S. Carl Vinson after he was killed by Navy SEALs yesterday. But anyone who thought that would mean the elaborate, and expensive, security apparatus set up around D.C. and the nation since Sept. 11, 2001, hasn't been paying enough attention. District officials went out of their way to warn of heightened danger from attacks even now that the al-Qaida boss is dead. On Metro, which seems only to have been the target of a would-be terrorist the FBI recruited for a fictional plot, police patrols and other security measures were increased. Years from now, will anyone even remember that bin Laden was the original reason for all this stuff? -3

Bin LadenShare: There's an answer to one question about the cheering hordes that materialized outside the White House last night—how did they get there? By Capital Bikeshare. The service reported a big spike between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. last night, with 558 rentals—far more than you'd expect for the middle of a Sunday night. That leaves the answers to other questions—questions like, where did they get all the flags and beer?—still unknown. +2

Water Back to Normal: Switching on the faucet should no longer evoke strong memories of childhood swim meets; D.C. Water has stopped using chlorine as a disinfectant and gone back to the odorless chloramine the agency uses for all but a few weeks each year. (Feel free to make your own jokes about lead here.) +2

Maps R Us: Been dreaming about a map of the building shapes in the District? How about land height in the city? Or commercial vs. residential zoning? All of these can now be yours, thanks to the geographic information system data D.C. officials make available. The real magic, of course, would be to combine some obscure piece of city data with a text-based map of D.C. +1

Friday's Needle rating: 63 Today's score: +2 Today's Needle rating: 65

Don't Fall into the Turkey Brine: Nurses at Washington Hospital Center, angry about what they say is chronic understaffing and busily haggling with management over a new contract, say they'll go on strike on Thanksgiving eve if their demands aren't met. We hereby predict that at least one breathless media story on the negotiations that will involve a pun about how a high-stakes game of chicken is happening on Turkey Day. -2

Veterans' Day Mystery to be Solved by Next Veterans' Day: Once upon a time, the District Building featured a plaque adorned with the names of fallen veterans. But during a 1990s renovation of the building, the plaque was lost—only to turn up again in a janitor's closet of the since-renamed John A. Wilson Building two years ago, broken into pieces. Now Mayor-elect Vincent Gray is vowing to restore the plaque by next Nov. 11. He also says the city will identify the 1,800 people on the list and what war they served in. (Given the city's record identifying, say, people in its criminal justice system, a year might be ambitious.) +3

Virginia Is for Tea Partiers: The list of reasons to be glad you live in the District and not in Virginia is long—for instance, you're not required to carry a concealed weapon whenever you go out in public, and the streets around you are not universally named for Robert E. Lee. Add to that list a new reason: Your car's license plates say "Taxation Without Representation" instead of commemorating the burgeoning anti-government Tea Party movement. A new plate with a "Don't Tread on Me" motif may soon be coming to the commonwealth across the Potomac. Presumably, cars with this plate will be banned from any highways funded by tax money. -2

Unleaded Parking: A park in Columbia Heights, at 11th and Monroe streets NW, has been closed since August, ever since Department of the Environment auditors found it was contaminated by lead. This being D.C., it probably got that way because it had been, at some point, contaminated with drinking water. Now the park has re-opened, after an extensive mitigation project—and none of the people who came forth for free blood tests the District offered were found to have elevated levels of lead in their systems from going to the park. Which means we can all go back to campaigning to change the city's postal abbreviation to Pb. +3

Yesterday's Needle rating: 42 Today's score: +2 Today's Needle rating: 44

Photo from Wikimedia, Creative Commons license

This morning, a bureaucrat from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control , the nation's preeminent public health agency, was summoned to Capitol Hill, where she was, in all likelihood, reamed out by members of a House subcommittee.

And with good reason, according to congressional investigators, who say CDC officials knowingly mislead District residents about the dangers of drinking the tap water in 2004, when it became public that several neighborhoods around the city were experiencing record-breaking lead levels.

CDC officials rushed to release a soothing report insisting that the amount of lead in the water did not pose a health threat, though they knew the findings were based on misleadingly incomplete data, according to WaPo's reporting on the investigation in today's paper. The Centers also failed to publicize a more comprehensive analysis that later showed children in the effected neighborhoods were more than twice as likely than other kids to have dangerous amounts of lead in their blood.

Since House officials haven't posted a podcast and it would have taken way to much effort to venture over to the Rayburn House Office Building, one can only imagine the grilling received by Dr. Robin M. Ikeda, who testified for the CDC at this morning's hearing of a House Science and Technology subcommittee. A quick perusal of her written testimony shows Ikeda defended her agency’s response to the lead controversy, saying: "CDC’s initial reports did not understate the magnitude of the problem."

Also in attendance was Marc Edwards, the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University professor, whose study of the lead in the D.C. water supply provided the fodder for the Post’s reporting and the subsequent uproar. He had a pretty different take on the Centers' performance: He called it “a monumental public health fiasco” that affected tens of thousands of D.C. homes.

Exposure to lead can literally make children dumber: According to the EPA, scientists have linked the effects of lead on the brain with lowered IQ in children, among other things.

Besides wondering how many IQ points D.C. youths lost forever, the episode raises questions about the believability of the CDC, the agency that leads the federal government's analysis and response to a wide range of public health threats – everything from combating swine flu and biological weapons to suggesting guidelines on pH levels in public swimming pools.

This hit to the CDC’s credibility – its performance after Hurricane Katrina was also discussed at today’s hearing – comes during a week filled with bad news on the public health front, much of it the kind that suggests our lifestyle is slowly killing us.

Diane Sawyer kicked off a week of gloomy headlines with hand-wringing on ABC World News Monday night over a study linking ADHD to pesticides found on strawberries, peaches and other produce. According to the researchers, children who test positive for the chemicals are twice as likely to have ADHD symptoms.

And, that's only one of the scary side effects linked to pesticides; Let's not forget about the Potomac River's inter-sex fish problem.

Researchers in Germany, meanwhile, announced that people living in cities tend to have higher blood pressure.

Another bummer: Cologne may lower men's sperm count. So the very same toilet water meant to signal a man's virility might actually be stripping him of it.

In other news to be filed under "counterproductive," suntan lotion is contributing to the death of coral reefs. So all those snorkelers who lather on the lotion before taking a dip are helping to kill off a main attraction to going into the water. Sheesh!

"You don’t deal with the general public the way you would deal with yourself."

—Jerry N. Johnson, WASA general manager, Feb. 10

The biggest story of 2004 made a second splashdown in 2009, when a public health study determined that waterborne lead discovered in city pipes five years ago may have been much more dangerous than anyone warned at the time. Johnson, who ran the Water and Sewer Authority then, was dragged before the D.C. Council, where overseer Jim Graham asked Johnson whether he'd allow his own child to drink potentially dangerous water. Johnson, never known for his PR acumen, took issue with the question, responding with the above retort. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty proceeded with a behind-the-scenes campaign to oust Johnson from his management post; he finally succeeded in September. Replacing Johnson was one of Fenty's best cabinet appointees: George Hawkins of the city environmental department. Johnson’s now out in the ‘burbs, running the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission.

More from LL's Quotes of 2009

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT—"Peter Nickles: I Will Not Call You Back," "Video: Is Cleveland Park Dead?" and "The Pershing Park Case: Did A District Official Commit Perjury?"

Morning all. A big thanks to the local politico reporters and Wilson Building staffers who a) Jokingly thought I had become LL; b) Wished me luck in compiling the must-read briefing on local politics; and c) failed to mention the "resident" controversy from yesterday. A few local heavyweights inquired about LL's bike ride to Dewey Beach and wondered if he had made it to the Rusty Rudder safely. I reached LL via e-mail. Here is what he wrote about his trek:

"Uh, well, we left gonzaga HS at 4:30 a.m. then took back roads to just across the severn river in annapolis where we were bused across the bay bridge to where 50 meets 404. it started out looking like it was going to be cloudy and rain all day, but by the time we crossed the bridge the clouds were gone and the sun was shining. so it was really hot. the route kinda sucked. its exactly the same as driving; we rode on the shoulder of these roads the whole time, trucks whizzing pasy, chickenshit in the air, no real scenery of note. but it was for a good cause–autism research–and it was pretty well run, lots of rest stops with powerbars and water and bananas and all that stuff. The first leg I did pretty fast, finishing 35 mi in about two and a half hours. the second leg was somewhat slower—five and a half hours to do 65 mi to Bethany Beach–but i was among the first half of finishers (at 2:15 p.m.) on my junky old bike. so yeah, it was good."

Now on to the news: Councilmember Phil Mendelson has joined colleague Councilmember Mary Cheh in calling for AG Peter Nickles to resign. Cheh spoke out to City Desk last Friday. So what has provoked the councilmembers? The OAG's conduct in a Pershing Park lawsuit in which police evidence has gone missing and/or has been destroyed, among other discovery problems. The U.S. District Court judge in the case has promised painful sanctions, has called on the D.C. Council to investigate the matter, and ordered Nickles to provide a sworn statement explaining his office's conduct. The Examiner's Bill Myers gets Mendo on the record calling for Nickles to go. Nickles offers his usual bulldog-with-rabies react: "It's politics at its worst. They have no idea what's going on." What's going on is available via transcript. News Channel 8's Bruce DePuyt has Cheh and Nickles on the Pershing Park issue. Nickles says he is "troubled" by the missing evidence, and will follow the law. Cheh stands by her comments and says D.C. needs a new attorney general.

LEAD TROUBLES: WaPo is reporting that House investigators have found many more children than previously reported had high levels of lead in their blood during the drinking water crisis from a few years ago. Key graphs: "Local officials could not say Monday whether some children with unsafe lead exposure have gone without intervention to reduce their health risks. The CDC and city health department had reported dangerously high lead levels in 193 children in 2003, the worst year for high concentrations of lead in city tap water. But lab data gathered by congressional investigators this year show that the actual number was 486 children."

AFTER THE JUMP: More public transpo issues, D.C. Police are getting some federal dough, Legal Seafood is fighting to stay inside National Reagan National Airport, WaPo stands up for press freedoms(!) and much, much more.

PUBLIC TRANSPO continues its stretch of bad press. Last night a man was stabbed at Union Station, News Channel 8 reports. It is unclear whether the man was stabbed on a train or on a platform. The man was taken to an area hospital. A female suspect was taken into custody. (Also reporting: WTOP). During rush hour, doors opened on a moving Metro train. Scary. WaPo reports that the incident occurred on an Orange Line train. No injuries were reported and the train was promptly taken out of service. Key graph: "A passenger, who requested anonymity because he is restricted from speaking to the media in his job as a House aide, said that the left panel in the middle door of a middle car came open and that the door closed as soon as the operator hit the brakes."

WJLA is reporting that 27 bus shelters have been busted recently. A DDOT source speculates that this appears to be the work of one person: "Metropolitan police will be handling the investigation. They say the damaged bus shelters are located across the city from Upper Northwest across the Potomac and into Southeast. Clear Channel, the company that began installing the shelters two years ago, said the first damage reports started coming in Sunday and then Monday the number of vandalized shelters passed the two dozen mark."

D.C. cops are getting a bit boost from the feds. Police coffers will see an increase of $12 million from a federal grant. The money will be used to hire an additional 50 officers. News Channel 8 reports this may not necessarily boost the rank and file's numbers: "At the same time the department is getting more officers, the D.C. Council passed a budget calling for a hiring freeze in the department. Over time, it will result in less officers all together. 'Whatever number we ended up at, we're now 50 more than that and that's great news,' said Fenty." NBC4 has a brief on the boost.

An Inspector General's audit has found that the District's financial office has failed to collect $750,000 in motor fuel taxes during the past couple years, the Examiner's Michael Neibauer reports. The news is kinda ironic: "The Office of the Inspector General 'identified uncollected motor fuel tax revenues of about $733,000 for six years,' said the audit, dated July 26. The District's Office of Tax and Revenue, auditors reported, 'has not been aggressively pursuing potential revenues,' as it never followed up with motor fuel importers who didn't pay. The audit was issued July 26, five days before the council voted to increase the gasoline tax from 20 cents to 23.5 cents per gallon."

WaPo is reporting that Legal Seafoods is seeking a court order to stop airport officials from kicking them out of Reagan National Airport's choice Terminal C locale. The chain says it's being pushed out to make way for a steakhouse. Nerdy highlight: "Owner Roger Berkowitz says the problems started last year during lease negotiations with officials from Westfield Concessions Management, the Los Angeles-based company that oversees retail stores and restaurants at National and at Dulles International Airport. He said Westfield encouraged the seafood chain to spend $2.3 million to expand, primarily by taking over the space of a bookstore next door. Berkowitz said he agreed to make the changes but insisted that the seafood chain pocket any construction savings. At the time, he said, construction costs were plummeting due to the weak economy." Of course, there's more.

Gov. Tim Kaine has told families of the Virgina Tech massacre victims that he will not reconvene his investigatory panel. The families had urged him to re-investigate the shootings in light of the shooter's mental health records being found. WaPo reports that more than 60 families and victims had signed a letter urging Kaine to bring the panel back. Key graphs:

"In an e-mail to families sent about noon Monday, Mark Rubin, the governor's counselor, ruled out reconvening the panel.

'While we would not rule out inviting willing members of the Panel to review proposed revisions to the report, we are sensitive that there are families who expressly do not want to reconvene the Panel,' he wrote. 'Our hope is that the current process for revisions will satisfy the need for a thorough report without upsetting families like your own any further.'

But Rubin added that Kaine will accept any factual corrections families wish to make to the report until Aug. 19."

PEGGY COOPER CAFRITZ—one of the District's most impressive politicos—talks about last week's fire that destroyed her home. She tells FOX5: "We'll always find the light, you know. We went through an exercise of looking through the plural of 'phoenix' and we found it, and it's 'phoenixes' and as I told others, that's exactly who my children and I are and will be." WUSA's Bruce Johnson had the exclusive first interview and some news on the fire: "Sources tell 9NEWS NOW that WASA had four reports of low water pressure in the area in the past year. At least two hydrants are clearly marked out of service." Let's hear it for "sources" whoever they are!

WaPo Editorial Board slams the D.C. Council's penchant for closed-door meetings. A must read for....fans of Sherwood, Segraves and any another local reporter who has pounded on those closed doors. Key graph: "THE D.C. COUNCIL was able to shut the public out of its recent budget deliberations because supposedly, it wasn't really taking action. Never mind that all the big decisions were being made behind those closed doors. That such an outrage could occur is the latest example of why the District is viewed as having one of the most worthless open-meetings laws in the country and why that law needs to be changed."

FENTY'S SCHEDULE:

10:45 a.m. Remarks
Demolition at Gage Eckington Elementary School
Location: Site of Former Gage Eckington Elementary School
2025 3rd Street, NW

4:00 p.m. Remarks
Petworth Recreation Center Ribbon Cutting
Location: 801 Taylor Street, NW

7:30 p.m. Remarks
79th Grand Chapter Meeting of Kappa Alpha Psi, Inc.
Location: Marriot Wardam Park Hotel
2660 Woodley Road, NW

The controversy originated in articles by Environmental Science and Technology and the Washington Post holding that Guidotti had an undisclosed contractual obligation to the D.C. Water and Sewer Authority to allow the utility to approve his study's results, a serious ethical violation. Guidotti's study found "no identifiable public health impact" from waterborne lead—a conclusion that came under fire this year when another team of researchers contradicted that finding.

Guidotti holds that the agreement with WASA required no such approvals. He had denied the charges personally in an e-mail to LL, who had linked and commented on the stories about the study. And now he has retained Elizabeth G. Taylor, partner at high-stakes litigation boutique Zuckerman Spaeder, to press efforts to clear his name.

Taylor, in an interview, says she is currently in talks with Environmental Health Perspectives, the journal that printed Guidotti's original study, in order to clarify his relationship with WASA. The essential issue, she says, is that WASA exterted no influence over Guidotti's study. "The facts are they didn't have the authority to do it," she says, "and they didn't do it." Taylor says she expects to present evidence to the journal clearing Guidotti next month.

Then there's the matter of the Post, which referred to Guidotti as a "paid consultant" to WASA in an A1 story by Carol D. Leonnig. Taylor says once things are resolved with the journal, she hopes the newspaper will also clear the air regarding her clients relationship with WASA. "We are in touch with the Post, and they have been responsive with us," Taylor says. "They want to get the facts straight as much as we do."

LL "aggregated" both of those articles in his LL Daily roundup, which was enough to earn this e-missive from Guidotti, who is currently working in Saudi Arabia.

The City Paper recently ran a story that requires correction.

Over the last several weeks, my work and that of my colleagues on the public health implications of lead in drinking water has been attacked, distorted, and misrepresented. It has been alleged that we allowed WASA to dictate our findings. That is a false accusation. It has been said that we minimized concerns over lead in order to protect WASA: that is untrue and based on misleading innuendo. There have been insinuations of a sinister conspiracy also involving the Department of Health, EPA, and CDC – this is total fantasy.

The important points are:

1. Our research team did nothing wrong.

2. The local utility (the Water and Sewer Authority, WASA) did not have the power to dictate our findings.

3. The contract was between WASA and the university – I was not a "paid consultant" (as described). The university was reimbursed for my time on the work.

4. We did not minimize the importance of exposure to lead from any source.

5. The data in our 2007 study are valid, the analysis was accurately reported, and we stand by the conclusions.

Tee L. Guidotti, MD, MPH, DABT

LL explained to Guidotti that he had done no original reporting on the subject, and that his objections were best raised with the folks at the Washington Post and at Environment Science and Technology, but LL did say he'd air his defense here at City Desk.

LL will point this out: Guidotti's Point 1 is a value judgment. Point 2 is a matter of continued debate; the plain language of the agreement would seem to have permitted WASA editorial review, even if that was not the intention. Point 3 would seem to be a matter of semantics. Point 4 depends on how you interpret the sentence, "There appears to have been no identifiable public health impact from the elevation of lead in drinking water," which could easily be read to minimize the impact of waterborne lead (vis-a-viz, in the context of the report, paintborne lead). And on Point 5, pending a promised official review of the study, to quote one Jeffrey Lebowski, "Well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man."

A father of twin boys filed a class-action lawsuit in D.C. Superior Court against WASA over the lead warning foul up, the Washington Post is reporting. John Parkhurst's two boys, the Post writes, "now 8, were toddlers when lead spiked to dangerous levels in the city's drinking water from 2001 to 2004. They now have learning and behavior problems that require therapy and medication that the lawsuit said costs between $30,000 and $40,000 a year." The Post had the scoop last week on the water issue.

The Post writes:

"The amount of lead in the District's drinking water had been rising from 2001 until 2004, and reached levels that were the highest ever measures in tapwater in the United States. A January 2004 Post article made public the severity of the problem, which WASA, the D.C. Department of Health and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had known about for at least the previous year."

The lawsuit leaves open the possibility that there will be other plaintiffs added to the case in the future. The number of plaintiffs seeking damages could be huge. DC Appleseed has been on the frontlines of this issue for some time. They've done tons of research that's worth checking out.