BLACKSBURG (WSLS10) - It's been five months since leaders in Michigan switched the water source back to the Great Lakes, meanwhile, people in Flint still can't drink the water from their own faucets because of high levels of lead. A group of Virginia Tech students are headed Michigan to help with the water crisis.
The group will be up there for about a week for their spring and will be working with habitat for humanity as well as distributing water kits for testing.
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"It's really empowering, it really just shows and it just shows how important our research is," Maggie Carolan, a student leading the team said.
The study team was lead by Professor Marc Edwards.
He got a call from Leanne Walters who asked his team to test the waters after she was concerned about high levels of lead.
The group learned she was correct, her home had more than 133 times the amount of lead in the water.
It's more than the maximum amount allowed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
For their spring break, they'll also test other homes that have high levels of lead.
"Extensive microbiological sampling, taking a lot of samples and taking an antiseptic technique to get the best samples possible to look at and see what microbes are in their drinking water," Carolan said.
The students are expected to return back to Virginia Tech on Sunday.