ROANOKE, Va. (AP) — A Virginia Tech professor who helped expose the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, is getting a nearly $2 million federal grant for further research into lead contamination.

The Roanoke Times reports the three-year grant from the Environmental Protection Agency will help Marc Edwards research strategies to detect and control lead levels in drinking water.

Edwards told the newspaper the funding will help pay for water testing in places that haven’t had much attention paid to their water quality. He will be working to create a citizen-scientist framework that allows people to test their own water nationwide.

Edwards helped reveal Flint’s alarming lead levels in 2015. Lead leaching from old pipes and fixtures caused elevated levels in children and left residents to drink and bathe with bottled or filtered water.

___

Information from: The Roanoke Times, http://www.roanoke.com