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The head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has pledged to work alongside Watts residents to address a host of environmental issues in the South Los Angeles community.

During a visit to the Jordan Downs public housing complex in Watts on Saturday morning, EPA Administrator Michael Regan said the agency is working with state and federal partners to address elevated lead levels in the community's drinking water and pollution from scrap metal recycler S & W Atlas Iron & Metal Co.

"For far too long, communities like Watts across the country have had to bear the brunt of environmental injustices—injustices like the unsafe operations from Atlas Metals, burdens like lead in drinking water right here at Jordan Downs," Regan said.

More than a month after a team of Southern California researchers released the results of a study finding lead-tainted water in public housing developments in Watts, the Department of Water and Power has provided the city housing authority with more than 2,000 water sampling kits, according to Anselmo Collins, DWP's senior assistant general manager in charge of the water system.

Results are trickling in, but early data from testing of kitchen faucets in public housing development Nickerson Gardens finds 43 samples below five parts per billion and 27 samples with undetectable levels, according to data provided by the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles.

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