This story was originally published by the Guardian. It appears here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. When Shakima Thomas came home one day last October, she found a piece of paper wedged in her door telling her the water in her home could be contaminated with lead. Thomas, a social worker in Newark, New Jersey, knew what it meant—that the tap water she and her four-year-old son Bryce had been drinking could have profound effects on their health. “My kid loves water—he loves it—so it was difficult telling him not to drink the water,” Thomas said.