In January, a year after Flint, Mich.’s corrosive, lead-tainted drinking water prompted President Obama to declare a state of emergency, Marc Edwards slept on a fold-out couch in a cold, empty home in the city to test its water at 3 a.m. That night, the testing showed the water was clear—a far cry from 2015, when the owner of the home, LeeAnne Walters, contacted the Virginia Tech civil and environmental engineering professor about the orange-and-yellow water that was giving her family rashes and poisoned one of her 5-year-old twin sons, Gavin.

Edwards’ first sample from Walters’ tap, in 2015, showed a lead level of 13,200 parts per billion. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) action level is 15 ppb, and water with lead above 5,000 ppb is considered hazardous waste. No level is considered safe.

弗林特市长凯伦·韦弗（Karen Weaver）（D）和这个贫困城市中的许多居民说，在过去的两年中，没有爱德华兹的帮助，他们仍然可能与州官员争论他们的水是否安全饮用。

五岁的加布里埃拉委内加斯尖叫着，一名卫生官员用针刺她的手指在2016年在弗林特举行的免费铅测试照片：Jake May/Flint Journal-mlive.com通过AP

Edwards was shocked at the levels of lead, but he wasn’t surprised at the state’s reaction. The nationally known expert in water treatment and pipe corrosion had fought a decade-long battle with federal and local officials over lead in drinking water in Washington, D.C.

Learning from what didn’t go right in Washington, Edwards knew exactly what he had to do in Flint. Using his own money and his wife’s minivan, Edwards took his team to the city to conduct hundreds of water tests and publicly called out the government agencies that failed to implement corrosion control in 2014, when the city began using the Flint River as its source for drinking water.

The Virginia Tech team’s marathon efforts were a tipping point. Despite a year of outcry from residents and activists, Flint got no action until Edwards “proved something was indeed wrong with the water,” says Weaver.

两年后，尽管弗林特（Flint）十字军东征对爱德华兹（Edwards）造成了巨大损失，但工程师帮助将城市的水转向可接受的铅水平，启发了衰老的基础设施的重建，并提高了美国对饮用水问题的认识。

“In the big picture, there has been no doubt that this has made things better,” says George Hawkins, CEO and general manager of utility DC Water. “He has elevated the issue of lead in water to a national and international significance that it’s never been elevated to before.”

Edwards also has reminded the nation’s engineers of their key mission “to protect the public welfare above everything else,” he says. “The second you forget that, people pay a price.”

For using his expertise and passion to fight for safe drinking water and for demonstrating how professionals can and should sound alarms when necessary—even at the risk of their own careers—Marc A. Edwards is Engineering News-Record’s Award of Excellence Winner for 2017.

That it took an engineer based in southern Virginia, more than 500 miles away from Flint, to focus national attention on the city’s plight says as much about Marc Edwards, 52, as it does about those who dismissed the citizens’ complaints for so long.

弗吉尼亚理工大学20年的资深人士说：“我不知道我是有原则的还是痛苦的。”“我知道其他人的接线方式并不相同。这在许多方面都是诅咒。”

Amy Pruden, a Virginia Tech professor of civil and environmental engineering who works with Edwards advising graduate students, shares his outlook. “Marc is a different kind of person,” she says. “He really feels the pain and suffering of everyday people who experience the consequences of bad policy or poor science.”

他的母亲Midge Edwards说，儿子在弗林特危机中表现出的特质 - 独立，决心，自律，独创性和同情 - 在纽约州里普利（Ripley）长大的时候，显然是四个孩子的第三个孩子，这是显而易见的。她回忆说，无论是在11岁时赢得当地的馅饼烘焙比赛还是在班上获得最高成绩，总是朝着一些目标努力。“他在那里很坚韧。他没有放弃，直到他解决问题之前，他都会解决问题，无论是什么障碍。”她说。

爱德华兹（Edwards）的父亲是里普利（Ripley）的一次建造K-12学校的前任校长，是一个早期的榜样。卡罗尔·“基因”·爱德华兹（Carroll“ Gene” Edwards）建议随着当地人口统计的变化，将学校与附近的竞争对手合并。3,000名社区的反对者对家庭的反击非常激烈。他们的房屋反复被西红柿撞倒，一些老师向爱德华兹的孩子们感到不满，而马克遭到了不止一次的殴打。

同时学校保持独立,直到2013年,通用电气ne Edwards’ stand made a strong impact on his son years later, during the Washington, D.C., water-supply battle. “Through his experiences, he was able to help me,” Edwards says of his father, who died on his 85th birthday last October.

马克·爱德华兹（Marc Edwards）早期影响

Fascinated with science from an early age and encouraged by his high school science teacher, Edwards earned a B.S. in biophysics from the State University of New York at Buffalo. The work of local environmental activists inspired him to pursue engineering instead of medicine.

爱德华兹说：“在伊利湖的海岸长大，我目睹了一个死去的湖泊，在实施了环境控制之后，以及污染对居住在[纽约州纽约州北部有毒废物遗址]的污染后果的后果。”赚取硕士爱德华兹（Edwards）来自华盛顿大学的环境工程学博士学位是一名杰出学生。土木工程教授名誉教授马克·本杰明（Mark Benjamin）说：“很明显，他是他到达那一刻起的特殊才能。”有一次，爱德华兹的硕士论文被错误地参加了博士候选人的比赛。他的论文获胜。

Edwards’ first job taught him a hard lesson in engineering and set him on his lifelong path. He was employed by a consultant for the local water utility to mitigate “blue water” that was caused by too much copper in the San Francisco Bay Area water supply. Long-term exposure to excess copper can damage liver and kidneys. The firm’s engineers were told they should not help customers because the lawyers said the utility was not obligated to do so.

他说，爱德华兹（Edwards）被律师的建议“震惊”，但仍然对蓝水问题本身的科学奥秘着迷。他后来的博士后工程研究的重点是家庭中的饮用水污染，他帮助将该领域确立为可靠的研究领域。

While teaching at the University of Colorado, Boulder, Edwards was selected as one of 20 young U.S. engineering faculty members to win a presidential fellowship for his work on water-system corrosion. He joined Virginia Tech’s faculty in 1997, attracted by its supportive faculty network, he says.

By 2003, Edwards had amassed millions of dollars in external research funding, authored 60 peer-reviewed publications and was elected president of the Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors.当时，他和他的妻子柔林（Jiu-ling）有两个小孩伊桑（Ethan）和艾琳（Aileen），现在是17岁和15岁。

But, looking back, Edwards terms himself a “suck-up” because he went along with institutional “group think,” did not question his own actions and was still naive about the world’s realities. That was about to change.

Pinhole Leaks

2003年，EPA通过其分包商环境顾问Cadmus集团聘请Edwards调查华盛顿水系统中的铅问题。爱德华兹（Edwards）对管道的水进行了测试，发现它的铅量至少是该机构允许的铅量的80倍。后来，他确定铅从管道中浸出，因为腐蚀性氯胺而不是氯被用作消毒剂。铅中毒尤其不利于幼儿，导致发育延迟和学习困难。在成年人中，它可能导致记忆和浓度问题，关节疼痛和高血压。

“错误的决定伤害了人们。这就是为什么第一个土木工程佳能是保护公共福利之上的原因。”- 马克·A·爱德华兹（Marc A. Edwards）

At the time, Edwards thought the problem would be quickly remedied after he notified officials of EPA and the Washington D.C. Water and Sewer Authority, which was rebranded DC Water in 2010. Instead, Edwards was told to stop working directly to resolve homeowners’ concerns or he would lose his contract work. He chose to work with the homeowners, and his $100,000 contract with EPA was history.

Months after Edwards raised the red flag, the agency notified residents about the problem. In June 2004, EPA cited the utility for withholding test results showing high levels of lead. The D.C. City Council, in turn, blamed the federal agency for lack of oversight of the city’s water system.

A Washington Post investigative series and congressional hearings shined a light on the city’s water problems. DC Water began using orthophosphate in the water to reduce corrosion, and EPA began closer oversight of the system. Today, lead levels range from 2 to 4 ppb, says CEO Hawkins. As a result of its lead crisis, the utility added new layers of lead monitoring, testing and communication with residents; it is still replacing lead pipes. Hawkins calls DC Water’s earlier lead problems “a hard learning experience” but says Marc Edwards is one of the reasons it is doing things differently now.

本杰明,爱德华兹的学术顾问边条rly in touch, says his former student stepped into “a quagmire of both professional and ethical issues” as he encountered lead concentrations more typical of hazardous waste than drinking water; sampling techniques that systemically and grossly underestimated lead concentrations; and non-reporting or misreporting of critical data. Over the next several years, Edwards continued to battle for homeowners and fought misinformation from, among others, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which falsely reported that increased lead in D.C.’s water did not boost lead levels in the blood. In 2010, the CDC admitted that its 2004 report did not include all the reported blood lead levels.

爱德华兹家族抵押了他们的房屋，以资助与哥伦比亚特区有关的研究，并为与信息自由法有关的文件付款。爱德华兹（Edwards）因压力而住院，有一次，他认为他已经忘记在弗吉尼亚州乡村布莱克斯堡（Blacksburg）的家中检查了井水的化学反应而毒害了自己的家人。

When Edwards “sees a corruption of the science that results or can result in harm, he expects that when the issues are pointed out to the utilities and regulators, the problems will be fixed,” says Miguel Del Toral, an EPA regulations manager who himself was a Flint whistle-blower. “When this does not happen, he understandably feels the need to conduct the scientific work to educate and inform the people who are being adversely affected.”

As Edwards fought the D.C. water battle, he became well known for helping water utilities solve plumbing mysteries. Dubbed by Time magazine in 2004 the “plumbing professor,” he published dozens of papers on water contaminants in peer journals and was recognized for his research, ethics and efforts to improve public health.

In 2007, Edwards received a $500,000 “genius grant” from the MacArthur Foundation for his advances in arsenic removal and the causes of copper and lead corrosion in new and aging water distribution systems. The funding allowed Edwards to set aside some of the money for the next water-related health crisis.

然后，在2015年4月，Leeanne Walters致电。

全部用于弗林特

Flint residents had been dealing with the foul-smelling, rash-inducing tap water since 2014. At that time, to save $5 million over two years, the city switched to Flint River water from the Detroit system’s Lake Huron source. A state-appointed emergency manager was overseeing the financially strapped city, once a center of U.S. auto manufacturing.

火石中的青少年穿过来自消防栓的喷泉样的喷泉喷雾剂。照片：Jake May/Flint Journal-mlive.com通过AP

After much research on her own,Walters suspected—as did EPA water expert Del Toral—that the city was not using a chemical to control the corrosion from the river water that was leaching lead from miles of lead pipes. EPA superiors prevented Del Toral from finalizing a report on the issue. When one state official literally laughed in Walters’ face, she called Edwards. “People were holding up these bottles of water, bags of hair. They had rashes,” Walters says of one community meeting in January 2015. “We knew that no one was listening to us. There was all of this physical evidence, and no one cared.”

沃尔特斯（Walters）和爱德华兹（Edwards）制定了一项计划，以科学证明水的毒性。爱德华兹（Edwards）召集了他的学生，问他们是否想“全力以赴”。他们毫不犹豫。“您想知道发生了什么事并为他们提供帮助 - 这是工程的本能，”在爱德华兹（Edwards）领导下从事博士后研究的民用和环境工程师Min Tang说。

爱德华兹（Edwards）的团队从10位学生和研究人员开始，并最终增长到40多个，组装了300个防篡改水采样套件。沃尔特斯（Walters）和一群志愿者将套件分发。第一批测试表明，17％的房屋的铅水平超过15 ppb，有17％超过100 ppb。“那是一个非常紧张的时期。从字面上看，您觉得一个城市正在中毒。”爱德华兹说。“参与其中的每个人都只是免费工作。”爱德华兹说，弗林特团队“对美国历史上的水系统进行了最彻底的独立评估。”该团队检查了消毒副产品和污染物，包括铅，粪便污染，机会性病原体和引起腐蚀的微生物。他说：“我们毫不动摇。”

该组织的第一个问题之一是军团菌。2014年弗林特水转开关后，军团疾病造成12人丧生，并使90人患病。弗林特队怀疑弗林特河的腐蚀性水从系统的铁管中浸出了铁。反过来，这种铁在通常会杀死军团菌细菌的水系统中去除氯。细菌还从多余的铁中喂食。后来在弗吉尼亚科技实验室进行的测试证实了这一假设。

测试结果显示水中有危险的铅水平，爱德华兹要求博士生Anurag Mantha打电话给Flint居民，并通知他们应该停止喝水，购买瓶装水或为水龙头购买过滤器。当曼莎意识到许多居民负担不起20美元的过滤器时，他开始用自己的钱购买它们，然后将他们送往弗林特。曼莎（Mantha）的努力最终变成了数百万美元的联合之路，以向每位弗林特（Flint）居民提供过滤器。

曼莎说：“在大多数情况下，我们几乎瞬间就产生了真正的直接影响。”“这使我意识到科学家和工程师对公众产生的影响。”爱德华兹（EdwardsFlintwaterstudy.org。

Then, in September 2015, local pediatrician Mona Hanna-Attisha released a study that found twice as many children under 5 years of age had elevated blood levels than before the drinking-water source was switched, with some up to 100% higher. One week later, Michigan declared a public health emergency. One month later, the city was reconnected to Detroit water. Since then, Hanna-Attisha, Edwards and Walters have all testified to Congress about what happened in Flint.

While the physician credits Flint residents and others in the crusade, she says that, without Edwards, “we would be nowhere because everybody had been raising their voices and advocating and [they] were dismissed. He brought the critical voice of science.”

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在城市和州承认供水问题之后，任命爱德华兹（Edwards）负责监督水测试，他继续这样做。弗林特已更换了约800条铅服务线。3月，居民提起诉讼，要求该市和州支付9700万美元，以替换到2020年的18,000个水管。联邦政府已承诺了一半的钱。

State Attorney General Bill Schuette (R) has brought criminal charges against 13 former state and local officials and filed a civil suit against engineering companies Veolia North America and Lockwood, Andrews & Newnam for professional negligence. Both city water-supply consultants have said in statements that they had no responsibility for the decisions that led to the lead problems.

Edwards notes that, unlike in Washington, D.C., everything went as well as it possibly could in Flint. He says the response from all agencies has been “unprecedented.” George Krisztian, who was appointed city action-plan coordinator for the Michigan Dept. of Environmental Quality, appreciates that Edwards can work with the agencies he once castigated. “Marc is very open-minded. He listens very intently to people with opposing viewpoints, and he gives due consideration to what others have to say,” Krisztian says.

Edwards serves on the state interagency committee that is assisting Flint. He expects to be involved in the city for perhaps another three years, helping with a wide range of problems. “All I can say about the Flint experience is that, at one level, I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. But I wouldn’t change it for anything in the world, either,” Edwards says. “At the end of the day, everyone who was involved in that battle had such a sense of purpose. We felt like we were doing the job we were born to do.”

Edwards says his life now is like a reality show, with dozens of media requests each month and daily inquiries from people whose water is blue or orange or smells bad. Talking to each, he sometimes deploys his team to investigate. He also helps engineering and science peers to research and publicize their own similar investigations. “His words gave me the strength to continue on, even through the darkest hours,” says Adrienne Katner, an assistant professor of environmental health sciences at Louisiana State University who, last year, exposed water problems in St. Joe, La., with Edwards’ support.

The American Society of Civil Engineering last year cited Edwards for his efforts, calling him “a tireless advocate for the protection of the nation’s drinking-water supply.” The advocate is now on sabbatical from teaching, but that hasn’t slowed down the lanky, 6-ft, 1-in., marathon runner, who says running at midnight helps him to sleep.

争议

Virginia Tech colleague Pruden, who is working with Edwards to direct studies of legionella and other opportunistic pathogens in water heaters and home plumbing, says the Flint crisis awakened the nation to “injustices” in drinking-water regulations that leave water systems in poor and small communities vulnerable. She and Edwards want loopholes tightened in federal regulation of legionella, and of lead and copper in drinking water (see弗林特之后，密歇根州将国家领先规则推向了联邦).

虽然水行业官员赞扬爱德华兹（Edwards）聚焦水上供应基础设施和监管问题，但有人说他的批评太尖锐了，并不能反映现实世界中灰色的阴影。波士顿水和下水道委员会首席工程师约翰·沙利文（John Sullivan）说：“另一面有另一个故事，”爱德华兹有时不想听到。“没有足够的钱可以立即拿出铅管。成为一名优秀的工程师，并不意味着我们今天必须停止世界。我们没有资源。”沙利文说，该行业还有保护消费者的替代方案，例如在使用和安装铅滤镜之前推荐冲洗线。

Reaction to Edwards' Flint Crusade

Hawkins of DC Water says he understands where Edwards is coming from, but he also can relate to his water-sector peers who are offended at the Virginia Tech engineers’ methods. “Marc comes into things with guns blazing in every direction. … Sometimes it’s like friendly fire,” Hawkins says, adding that Edwards’ criticisms of his water-industry peers can sometimes hit those who are more on his side than against him.

马克·爱德华兹and students prepare water-testing kits to be distributed to Flint residents in Edwards’ lab at Virginia Tech in the spring of 2016 in preparation for a second round of testing of homes in Flint.Photo courtesy of Virginia Tech

In an editorial last September in industry publication Environmental Science and Technology, Editor-in-Chief David Sedlak wrote that Edwards’ advocacy threatens the “social contract that underpins the tradition of financial support for basic research,” because government agencies and organizations that support such research want objective scientists.

在回应时，爱德华兹强调说：“保持沉默是在犯下不公正现象方面是同谋。”他补充说：“无论我们的余生或职业可能会发生什么，我们都确定一件事：弗林特是一个值得一游的社区，通过维护正当的原因，我们增强学术界和公众。”

材料工程师弗吉尼亚理工大学主席蒂莫西·桑德斯（Timothy D. Sands）说，爱德华兹的行动确实改善了大学与公众的联系。该学校创建了一个新奖项，在五年内以500,000美元的资金资助，以支持Edwards和Hanna-Attisha为Flint的工作。

姓名d after the university’s Latin motto “Ut Prosim,” which translates to “That we may serve,” the award will be available to other faculty for their public service efforts. “We are learning from him and trying to incorporate some of the things he values,” says Sands. “I think we’re starting to change the conversation.”

Edwards is starting to change the conversation for students, too. Louisiana State’s Katner calls him a “rock star” to young scientists and engineers. In class and through the Flint experience, Edwards’ students have learned firsthand the impact they can have.

“Engineers can be the change-makers of society,” says Joyce Xiu, a PhD candidate in environmental and civil engineering and a Flint team member.

While Edwards is passionate about continuing his research, he says, “I live to recast the engineer’s life journey as one of self-actualization.”

根据学者的说法，工程师对公众的伤害通常不是来自一个纪念性行动，而是来自许多人做出的小规模，不受组织的决定。他说：“您可以拥有这些大邪恶（在其中每个人都有一个很小的部分，每个部分本身对于所涉及的人来说都是可辩护的，但是您最终会造成巨大的谎言，造成伤害人们的悲剧。”

爱德华兹（Edwards）的影响力已经超越了弗林特（Flint）和弗吉尼亚理工大学（Virginia Tech）校园，危机已经在全国各地的工程伦理课程中进行了案例研究。新利18备用前爱德华兹顾问本杰明（Benjamin）说：“我对学生的底线是，就像这些更关心保护代理机构的人一样，或者当您看到错误地完成的事情时，您可以勇于站起来。”

“I think his influence is much greater than he realizes,” says William Marcy, 75, director of the National Institute for Engineering Ethics at Texas Tech and its former provost. “We may not see the results in my lifetime, but we hopefully will in his.”