Lead water supply lines are a big, big problem. Lead was used long before anyone knew it was poison—the ancient Romans had lead pipes—and because it lasts for a very long time, there's little incentive to replace it. Pretty sure my old house in Denver (built in 1924) had a lead water supply line from the street. It might cost you $5,000 to replace the lateral from the street to the house in a single-family home neighborhood, which is less than the cost of damaged kids. But it gets more complicated in old neighborhoods, multi-family dwelllings, and ones where lead pipe is used in the building.
I'm suspicious of assertions that the water can be "treated" to stop lead from leaching. Perhaps some of our resident chemistry experts can provide informed opinions.
Lead is an interesting item. I have worked for many years in the paint industry. When I first started in England almost 40 years ago, we used controlled-solubilty lead chromates in some industrial products. All workers who used lead chromates (me included) were given an annual blood-lead check, as well as a few other workers as a background chck. One year the highest blood-lead level was found in an accountant who lived in a house with a lot of lead pipework. To be honest, the chromate was probably more of a threat than the lead, and strontium chromate aircraft primers, which did not always use controlled-solubility pigments, were much worse than lead chromates.
One of the many different jerbs I've performed in my career was hauling polymerized poop from the water district to the dump. One of the few jerbs I ever quit.
Milwaukee has an interesting |water treatment history.|
So they can get heavy metals out of sewage sludge, but not tapwater.
Lead water supply lines are a big, big problem. Lead was used long before anyone knew it was poison—the ancient Romans had lead pipes—and because it lasts for a very long time, there's little incentive to replace it. Pretty sure my old house in Denver (built in 1924) had a lead water supply line from the street. It might cost you $5,000 to replace the lateral from the street to the house in a single-family home neighborhood, which is less than the cost of damaged kids. But it gets more complicated in old neighborhoods, multi-family dwelllings, and ones where lead pipe is used in the building.
I'm suspicious of assertions that the water can be "treated" to stop lead from leaching. Perhaps some of our resident chemistry experts can provide informed opinions.
Lead is an interesting item. I have worked for many years in the paint industry. When I first started in England almost 40 years ago, we used controlled-solubilty lead chromates in some industrial products. All workers who used lead chromates (me included) were given an annual blood-lead check, as well as a few other workers as a background chck. One year the highest blood-lead level was found in an accountant who lived in a house with a lot of lead pipework. To be honest, the chromate was probably more of a threat than the lead, and strontium chromate aircraft primers, which did not always use controlled-solubility pigments, were much worse than lead chromates.
One of the many different jerbs I've performed in my career was hauling polymerized poop from the water district to the dump. One of the few jerbs I ever quit.
Holy shit, that's awful.
the national average for lead poisoning is about three percent
10 million people in the US? #MAGA
Certainly not 10 million people of the better sort.