City tests confirm some Chicago homes with water meters have lead in tap water

City testing of Chicago homes with water meters found nearly 1 in 5 sampled had brain-damaging lead in their tap water, but Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s water commissioner acknowledged Thursday that the city continued installing new meters after learning about the alarming results in June.

Disclosure of the previously secret study of 296 metered homes comes after more than five years of denials by Emanuel and his aides that the nation’s third-largest city has a widespread lead problem, even as the scandal in Flint, Mich., drew national attention to the hazards and other research in Chicago consistently found the toxic metal in drinking water.