To Remove Lead Water Pipes, First You Must Find Them

[Devils_Advocate]

Safe drinking water for everyone in America is an important goal, and Joe Biden’s American Jobs Plan makes a $111 billion investment toward that. While the majority of the funding goes to modernizing water treatment and delivery systems and remediating potentially harmful chemicals like PFAS, what’s gotten the most attention is a $45 billion initiative to “replace 100 percent of the nation’s lead pipes and service lines.”

If we could manage to do this, it would make a huge difference. Lead exposure has been credibly linked to stunted child development, kidney disease, auditory problems, brain damage, behavioral challenges, and more provocatively, crime. We eliminated leaded gasoline and paint in the 1970s and yet it still lingers as a persistent problem. And part of that comes through water tainted as it flows through lead pipes.

But if you want to replace all the lead water pipes in America, the first thing you have to do is find all the lead water pipes in America.

First 100: To Remove Lead Water Pipes, First You Must Find Them

And then you have to remove the whole pipe, including the part on private property.

prospect.org

This sounds like it has the makings of a chaotic nightmare. I don't have a problem with it as long as homeowners are not having to come up with money to replace them.

in all my 45 yrs of working on old houses I have never seen a single lead water pipe,, they are used fro drain pipes but not water pipes because they cant handle the pressure,,

I could be wrong but aren’t they mostly in old farm houses ( if any left in today time ) or small communities that never replaced their pipes?

Again I could be wrong and I know there was a big push in the 1970’s to update the systems across the country...

The Lead Map

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE FULL MAP Presenting SimpleLab’s new 'Lead Map', designed to help you assess the risk of lead and other heavy metals in your drinking water Is There Lead Where You Live? This map will be most relevant to people living in smaller towns with small water systems that get their...

mytapscore.com

these are city water lines not the ones going into the homes,,

I understand that and thought most if not all lead piping has been phased out...

I mean I haven’t heard of lead piping in any region I have lived in the last forty years, but again I could be wrong...

 

[progressive hunter]

In really old houses water mains are cast iron with lead solder.

In really new houses water pipes are copper with lead solder. I think lead in water is mostly an excuse for Dem PORK. If Dems want to accomplish something for the environment they should fix their broke ass sewage systems in their cities and stop spilling hundreds of millions of gallons of raw untreated sewage into public rivers and oceans.

WRONG!!!

new houses get mostly pex and very few get copper and those that do are required to use leadfree solder,,,

 

[progressive hunter]

Safe drinking water for everyone in America is an important goal, and Joe Biden’s American Jobs Plan makes a $111 billion investment toward that. While the majority of the funding goes to modernizing water treatment and delivery systems and remediating potentially harmful chemicals like PFAS, what’s gotten the most attention is a $45 billion initiative to “replace 100 percent of the nation’s lead pipes and service lines.”

If we could manage to do this, it would make a huge difference. Lead exposure has been credibly linked to stunted child development, kidney disease, auditory problems, brain damage, behavioral challenges, and more provocatively, crime. We eliminated leaded gasoline and paint in the 1970s and yet it still lingers as a persistent problem. And part of that comes through water tainted as it flows through lead pipes.

But if you want to replace all the lead water pipes in America, the first thing you have to do is find all the lead water pipes in America.

First 100: To Remove Lead Water Pipes, First You Must Find Them

And then you have to remove the whole pipe, including the part on private property.

prospect.org

This sounds like it has the makings of a chaotic nightmare. I don't have a problem with it as long as homeowners are not having to come up with money to replace them.

in all my 45 yrs of working on old houses I have never seen a single lead water pipe,, they are used fro drain pipes but not water pipes because they cant handle the pressure,,

I could be wrong but aren’t they mostly in old farm houses ( if any left in today time ) or small communities that never replaced their pipes?

Again I could be wrong and I know there was a big push in the 1970’s to update the systems across the country...

The Lead Map

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE FULL MAP Presenting SimpleLab’s new 'Lead Map', designed to help you assess the risk of lead and other heavy metals in your drinking water Is There Lead Where You Live? This map will be most relevant to people living in smaller towns with small water systems that get their...

mytapscore.com

these are city water lines not the ones going into the homes,,

I understand that and thought most if not all lead piping has been phased out...

I mean I haven’t heard of lead piping in any region I have lived in the last forty years, but again I could be wrong...

they have been phased out but these are old ones that never got replaced,,

 

[Devils_Advocate]

Safe drinking water for everyone in America is an important goal, and Joe Biden’s American Jobs Plan makes a $111 billion investment toward that. While the majority of the funding goes to modernizing water treatment and delivery systems and remediating potentially harmful chemicals like PFAS, what’s gotten the most attention is a $45 billion initiative to “replace 100 percent of the nation’s lead pipes and service lines.”

If we could manage to do this, it would make a huge difference. Lead exposure has been credibly linked to stunted child development, kidney disease, auditory problems, brain damage, behavioral challenges, and more provocatively, crime. We eliminated leaded gasoline and paint in the 1970s and yet it still lingers as a persistent problem. And part of that comes through water tainted as it flows through lead pipes.

But if you want to replace all the lead water pipes in America, the first thing you have to do is find all the lead water pipes in America.

First 100: To Remove Lead Water Pipes, First You Must Find Them

And then you have to remove the whole pipe, including the part on private property.

prospect.org

This sounds like it has the makings of a chaotic nightmare. I don't have a problem with it as long as homeowners are not having to come up with money to replace them.

in all my 45 yrs of working on old houses I have never seen a single lead water pipe,, they are used fro drain pipes but not water pipes because they cant handle the pressure,,

I could be wrong but aren’t they mostly in old farm houses ( if any left in today time ) or small communities that never replaced their pipes?

Again I could be wrong and I know there was a big push in the 1970’s to update the systems across the country...

The Lead Map

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE FULL MAP Presenting SimpleLab’s new 'Lead Map', designed to help you assess the risk of lead and other heavy metals in your drinking water Is There Lead Where You Live? This map will be most relevant to people living in smaller towns with small water systems that get their...

mytapscore.com

these are city water lines not the ones going into the homes,,

I understand that and thought most if not all lead piping has been phased out...

I mean I haven’t heard of lead piping in any region I have lived in the last forty years, but again I could be wrong...

they have been phased out but these are old ones that never got replaced,,

So what are the chances of some kid getting lead poisoning in today time?

I say very slim, so I believe those Billions of Dollars could be used for something else but hey who I am...

 

[progressive hunter]

Safe drinking water for everyone in America is an important goal, and Joe Biden’s American Jobs Plan makes a $111 billion investment toward that. While the majority of the funding goes to modernizing water treatment and delivery systems and remediating potentially harmful chemicals like PFAS, what’s gotten the most attention is a $45 billion initiative to “replace 100 percent of the nation’s lead pipes and service lines.”

If we could manage to do this, it would make a huge difference. Lead exposure has been credibly linked to stunted child development, kidney disease, auditory problems, brain damage, behavioral challenges, and more provocatively, crime. We eliminated leaded gasoline and paint in the 1970s and yet it still lingers as a persistent problem. And part of that comes through water tainted as it flows through lead pipes.

But if you want to replace all the lead water pipes in America, the first thing you have to do is find all the lead water pipes in America.

First 100: To Remove Lead Water Pipes, First You Must Find Them

And then you have to remove the whole pipe, including the part on private property.

prospect.org

This sounds like it has the makings of a chaotic nightmare. I don't have a problem with it as long as homeowners are not having to come up with money to replace them.

in all my 45 yrs of working on old houses I have never seen a single lead water pipe,, they are used fro drain pipes but not water pipes because they cant handle the pressure,,

I could be wrong but aren’t they mostly in old farm houses ( if any left in today time ) or small communities that never replaced their pipes?

Again I could be wrong and I know there was a big push in the 1970’s to update the systems across the country...

The Lead Map

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE FULL MAP Presenting SimpleLab’s new 'Lead Map', designed to help you assess the risk of lead and other heavy metals in your drinking water Is There Lead Where You Live? This map will be most relevant to people living in smaller towns with small water systems that get their...

mytapscore.com

these are city water lines not the ones going into the homes,,

I understand that and thought most if not all lead piping has been phased out...

I mean I haven’t heard of lead piping in any region I have lived in the last forty years, but again I could be wrong...

they have been phased out but these are old ones that never got replaced,,

So what are the chances of some kid getting lead poisoning in today time?

I say very slim, so I believe those Billions of Dollars could be used for something else but hey who I am...

according to the situation there are a lot if them getting it in flint,,, along with a lot of adults,,,

 

[occupied]

In really old houses water mains are cast iron with lead solder.

In really new houses water pipes are copper with lead solder. I think lead in water is mostly an excuse for Dem PORK. If Dems want to accomplish something for the environment they should fix their broke ass sewage systems in their cities and stop spilling hundreds of millions of gallons of raw untreated sewage into public rivers and oceans.

Lead free solder for copper pipes has been available since at least the seventies. Copper pipes are just about obsolete since Pex came along. There's still a lot of it out there but I have not seen any plumber putting in copper in new construction since I've been around. PVC was already making it unattractive in the seventies.

 

[BluesLegend]

In really old houses water mains are cast iron with lead solder.

In really new houses water pipes are copper with lead solder. I think lead in water is mostly an excuse for Dem PORK. If Dems want to accomplish something for the environment they should fix their broke ass sewage systems in their cities and stop spilling hundreds of millions of gallons of raw untreated sewage into public rivers and oceans.

WRONG!!!

new houses get mostly pex and very few get copper and those that do are required to use leadfree solder,,,

Houses built up to 1998 still contained lead in the copper pipe solder.

 

[BluesLegend]

In really old houses water mains are cast iron with lead solder.

In really new houses water pipes are copper with lead solder. I think lead in water is mostly an excuse for Dem PORK. If Dems want to accomplish something for the environment they should fix their broke ass sewage systems in their cities and stop spilling hundreds of millions of gallons of raw untreated sewage into public rivers and oceans.

Lead free solder for copper pipes has been available since at least the seventies. Copper pipes are just about obsolete since Pex came along. There's still a lot of it out there but I have not seen any plumber putting in copper in new construction since I've been around. PVC was already making it unattractive in the seventies.

Nope not required to be lead free until 1998. My house built a few years ago is 100% Pex but there's crap tons of homes with copper and lead solder.

 

[BluesLegend]

Meanwhile 8 million pounds of pure lead is tossed into rivers, lakes, and oceans each year by sport fishermen just in the USA. Don't walk barefoot on the beach, you are literally bathing in lead. As almost none of this lead is recovered that's 80 million pounds of lead over just the past 10 years.

 

[Dragonlady]

It's off topic. Take it to another thread. You are in no position to decide what is rational and what is not.

O.k. then if you insist I'll stay on the lead pipes thing.
May I comment on the lack of understanding, being self-destructive to America and Americans?
I think that's the only really useful purpose of the debate. Thus, I have related your issue to other similar issues in which America is choosing self-destruction over Biden's attempts at the 'really big' fix.

Bridges, potholes, health care, infrastructure in general, lead water pipes, poverty of the working class, etc., etc., etc.

Can we not combine them all into being that which has dropped America down to 15th. on quality of life? I mean hon, little children starting to twitch and turn green after drinking water laced with lead, is hardly American, is it?

This is an easy fix. Houses in urban areas are fed from the street, usually from a metering box with 100 feet of the house. The feeds can be retrofitted with PEX. This can be done by giving contracts to local plumbers, creating jobs for them, as well as the suppliers, as well as the manufacturers of the pipe and fittings. Homeowners get an upgrade to their houses, increasing their value, fixing the toxic water problem at the same time.

This problem has been way over thought.

The Trump humpers don't like it because it actually gets something done for real Americans. When that happens they can't win. They're now finding out the hard way this isn't 2010, and they're not dealing with Obama. Everything is different now, and the same bull shit they have been selling for years, isn't selling anymore. They can't put a welfare queen angle on it, and it's driving them batshit crazy.

Joe Biden is playing them like a fiddle, while Donald Trump is steadily fucking them in the ass from Mar A Lago.

The entertainment value of watching the righties implode in on themselves is epic.

Except that from what I understand lead pipes aren't supplying the water to the homes. So, then the question is why are we fixing a non-issue? Is that confusion on the part of the author?

According to this link, 10 million homes get their water through lead municipal pipes. That's a significant number of families:

Lead pipes: A threat to kids across America

U.S. homes relying on lead pipe lines put kids at risk. The protective coating can fail unpredictably, allowing lead into drinking water.

www.edf.org

EDF has a four star rating, according to their website.

Why donate? Because you can make a difference.

When you donate to EDF, a top environmental charity, your gift will make a real difference in creating a cleaner, healthier, safer world tomorrow.

www.edf.org

Municipal records should show what their water system pipes are made of, as well as when they were installed, so ferretting out where these pipes are, should also be fairly easy.

 

[progressive hunter]

In really old houses water mains are cast iron with lead solder.

In really new houses water pipes are copper with lead solder. I think lead in water is mostly an excuse for Dem PORK. If Dems want to accomplish something for the environment they should fix their broke ass sewage systems in their cities and stop spilling hundreds of millions of gallons of raw untreated sewage into public rivers and oceans.

WRONG!!!

new houses get mostly pex and very few get copper and those that do are required to use leadfree solder,,,

Houses built up to 1998 still contained lead in the copper pipe solder.

only if they were using illegal solder,, it was outlawed long before that,,

• In 1986, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) banned the use of lead pipes and lead solder in plumbing systems because lead is an insidious and dangerous poison. The EPA set an "action level" of.015 milligrams per liter of water for lead, stating that levels higher than that in water could pose a risk to human health.

Contamination from Lead Solder Used on Household Water Pipes ...

 

[Dragonlady]

In really old houses water mains are cast iron with lead solder.

In really new houses water pipes are copper with lead solder. I think lead in water is mostly an excuse for Dem PORK. If Dems want to accomplish something for the environment they should fix their broke ass sewage systems in their cities and stop spilling hundreds of millions of gallons of raw untreated sewage into public rivers and oceans.

Lead free solder for copper pipes has been available since at least the seventies. Copper pipes are just about obsolete since Pex came along. There's still a lot of it out there but I have not seen any plumber putting in copper in new construction since I've been around. PVC was already making it unattractive in the seventies.

In colder climates, there have been a lot of reports of PVC piping being less durable, and more prone to cracking where the ground freezes in winter. It's legal here, but if you want your plumbing to last, you want copper.

https://www.hunker.com/13401334/why-do-pvc-pipes-crack-become-brittle

 

[progressive hunter]

In really old houses water mains are cast iron with lead solder.

In really new houses water pipes are copper with lead solder. I think lead in water is mostly an excuse for Dem PORK. If Dems want to accomplish something for the environment they should fix their broke ass sewage systems in their cities and stop spilling hundreds of millions of gallons of raw untreated sewage into public rivers and oceans.

Lead free solder for copper pipes has been available since at least the seventies. Copper pipes are just about obsolete since Pex came along. There's still a lot of it out there but I have not seen any plumber putting in copper in new construction since I've been around. PVC was already making it unattractive in the seventies.

In colder climates, there have been a lot of reports of PVC piping being less durable, and more prone to cracking where the ground freezes in winter. It's legal here, but if you want your plumbing to last, you want copper.

https://www.hunker.com/13401334/why-do-pvc-pipes-crack-become-brittle

copper breaks almost as easy as pvc,, if youre worried about freezing you use pex

 

[BluesLegend]

copper breaks almost as easy as pvc,, if youre worried about freezing you use pex

My custom home builder said he thought he would be copper forever, but switched to Pex for that very reason if it freezes Pex expands it doesn't split. When it thaws it shrinks back again. That cold spell in Texas burst about 5 million copper pipes open.

 

[bigrebnc1775]

Safe drinking water for everyone in America is an important goal, and Joe Biden’s American Jobs Plan makes a $111 billion investment toward that. While the majority of the funding goes to modernizing water treatment and delivery systems and remediating potentially harmful chemicals like PFAS, what’s gotten the most attention is a $45 billion initiative to “replace 100 percent of the nation’s lead pipes and service lines.”

If we could manage to do this, it would make a huge difference. Lead exposure has been credibly linked to stunted child development, kidney disease, auditory problems, brain damage, behavioral challenges, and more provocatively, crime. We eliminated leaded gasoline and paint in the 1970s and yet it still lingers as a persistent problem. And part of that comes through water tainted as it flows through lead pipes.

But if you want to replace all the lead water pipes in America, the first thing you have to do is find all the lead water pipes in America.

First 100: To Remove Lead Water Pipes, First You Must Find Them

And then you have to remove the whole pipe, including the part on private property.

prospect.org

This sounds like it has the makings of a chaotic nightmare. I don't have a problem with it as long as homeowners are not having to come up with money to replace them.

in all my 45 yrs of working on old houses I have never seen a single lead water pipe,, they are used fro drain pipes but not water pipes because they cant handle the pressure,,

That's interesting. I don't know anything about the water pipes in old houses (or new ones or in general).

Water pipes in old house would have galvanized pipes or copper

 

[bigrebnc1775]

copper breaks almost as easy as pvc,, if youre worried about freezing you use pex

My custom home builder said he thought he would be copper forever, but switched to Pex for that very reason if it freezes Pex expands it doesn't split. When it thaws it shrinks back again. That cold spell in Texas burst about 5 million copper pipes open.

the pipe won't bust but the fittings will/can

 

[initforme]

It is time to replace much of the cast iron piping....so america needs to step up to the plate

 

[Lesh]

in all my 45 yrs of working on old houses I have never seen a single lead water pipe

maybe I'm missing something,, but lead pipes would crush if you buried them and burst if you put them under the pressure water is put under,,

WTF are you people talking about?

Just about any FEED water pipe installed pre-1960 was lead. If they haven't been upgraded they are STILL lead but coated with calcium...which when degraded by chemical or physical means exposes the people drinking from that water to the lead

 

[Lesh]

Safe drinking water for everyone in America is an important goal, and Joe Biden’s American Jobs Plan makes a $111 billion investment toward that. While the majority of the funding goes to modernizing water treatment and delivery systems and remediating potentially harmful chemicals like PFAS, what’s gotten the most attention is a $45 billion initiative to “replace 100 percent of the nation’s lead pipes and service lines.”

If we could manage to do this, it would make a huge difference. Lead exposure has been credibly linked to stunted child development, kidney disease, auditory problems, brain damage, behavioral challenges, and more provocatively, crime. We eliminated leaded gasoline and paint in the 1970s and yet it still lingers as a persistent problem. And part of that comes through water tainted as it flows through lead pipes.

But if you want to replace all the lead water pipes in America, the first thing you have to do is find all the lead water pipes in America.

First 100: To Remove Lead Water Pipes, First You Must Find Them

And then you have to remove the whole pipe, including the part on private property.

prospect.org

This sounds like it has the makings of a chaotic nightmare. I don't have a problem with it as long as homeowners are not having to come up with money to replace them.

>But if you want to replace all the lead water pipes in America, the first thing you have to do is find all the lead water pipes in America.

I suppose the logical way to go about it is to test homes, and if the lead content is high, then test the water being supplied to the home to determine if the source is the home, the supply, or both.

If the lead content is not high, no need to replace the pipe, even if is does have lead content or solder.

In some cases, it might make more sense to simply run new lines, instead of removing the old ones at possible extra cost.

Jesus christ people. Just look at your water meter. The inlet side will tell you what kind of pipe feeds your house

 

[Lesh]

It is time to replace much of the cast iron piping....so america needs to step up to the plate

Cast iron is almost exclusively used for mains (in the street)and drains and is neither lead nor the issue here.