Lead Poisoning

[effi]

he said, and i quote " all the piping in our house was lead piping "

the rest of what you have to say is based on your erroneous premise, so is irrelevant

[oreo123]

Áh if 10 percent of housing was deleaded and 75 percent of children have lower lead levels then it was not all to do with paint.

Lead was removed in 78 from paint. But it was also removed from food cans and gasoline. That is when the levels started to fall.

Oddly the paint companies and gasoline companies have escaped liability. Could it be because the govt told them to add lead and then said to take it out? Kinda like MTBE today in the gasoline that is polluting our wells?

The solution is a cleanliness campaign to educate everyone how to keep a clean household.

FWIW - highest lead levels are found on a window sill. Highest month for lead is August. This all points to the outside. And if one builds a new home there should not be any lead at all right? Wrong - there will be lead levels detected on window sills.

Some ways to reduce lead levels... eat more veggies, use dust mats in homes, do not allow pets outside as they drag it back in and raise lead levels, remove shoes when entering a house. Japan has lots of lead around them YET they have no lead poisoning due to their cleanliness.

Remember that lead is also in yellow plastic, lipstick, baby powder, hair dyes, candles... and probably grandma's house.

This policy is overblown in Massachusetts. Could this be the reason why its not a national program as other states question this state?

[DOUGLAS]

The fact of whether just his service was lead or ALL his pipes were lead is not the point.

The point is that lead pipes become lined with mineral deposits, greatly reducing the amount of lead that leaches into the water. As mentioned, laboratory tests have shown that a simple flushing of the toilet before drinking tap water serves to drop the lead in the water moving thru such pipes to a negligible level.

Doug

[Michael Daly]

The Romans were using lead salts as a sweetener. That allowed it to be absorbed in their bodies. That probably contributed a lot more lead than the water supply plumbing.

Mike

[effi]

the wine sweetener got its lead content from being prepared in a lead pot

"A more probable cause of lead poisoning in ancient Rome was the consumption of defrutum or sapa. Cato, Columella, and Pliny all describe how unfermented grape juice (mustum, must) was boiled to concentrate its sugar. "A product of art, not of nature," says Pliny (XIV.80), the must was reduced to one half (defrutum) or even one third its volume (sapa), and the thickened syrup used to sweeten and preserve wine and fruit. The question is whether the must was boiled in pots of lead or bronze. In De Agri Cultura, the earliest example of Latin prose (c.160 BC), Cato gives directions for reducing must in "a copper or lead vessel" over a slow fire..."

as to which "contributed a lot more lead" "Scholars have reported that Roman food, water and wine all contained excessive amounts of lead."

[mike hide]

The lead pipes I mentioned were in a house probably built in the late 1930s in the UK . House construction there is [or was quite different then] double brick construction with a 4" airspace between. The inside walls were plastered . The pipes that ran to the house were lead and so were the pipes [running inside the walls were also lead ] As a matter of fact I remember several times during harsh winters the pipes would burst and the plumber had to tear the wall apart to make the repair, sweating in the repair and smoothing it out with a moleskin, never did quite understand that part ....mjh

[mike hide]

[Duane Bozarth]

effi wrote: ...

If you'd started w/ that or just posted that, I'd have let if fly and never responed--that I wouldn't disagree w/ When you start off w/ a "the sky is falling" mantra, that I just can't abide... :)

[Duane Bozarth]

Tom Miller wrote: ...

As noted in another response, I never lived in an urban area until much later so that was a new one for me...learned something I didn't know which was the point of asking...I'm going to ask the City Engineer here if it was commonly used here...so far, everything I've seen in town has used black or galvanized. Of course, there's very little in town here that predates 1900 as the original townsite wasn't founded until about

1888 when this became the railroad terminus prior to opening the OK Territory...

[Duane Bozarth]

oreo123 wrote: ...

But in what form? There has to be an exposure pathway and a chemical form that promotes retention for there to be a problem...

Not to say there can't be a problem, but to say there's always a problem is just as inaccurate...

[Tom Miller]

Then this town is actually younger than yours, founded in 1895, population 811. However, the first European-style dwelling in what became the town boundaries was built in 1704. Prior to that, there was a large Lenape Indian settlement here.

The big development era was from 1920 to 1930 when the population increased by 300%. That was when most of the houses were built and I would guess that all of them originally had lead intake pipes like mine. The water company puts chemicals in the system to help keep lead from leaching. And judging from the relatively low water pressure I've lived with for 23 years, the inside of the pipe must be pretty well coated. Two toilet flushes in the morning clear the pipes of the water that has stood in the lead pipe overnight.

Only two adults live here and we drink bottled water almost exclusively (by preference, not fear of lead poisoning). We have no children. We use filtered water for coffee, again out of preference.

We tested for lead years ago and have discussed the issue with the water company. The water company regularly sends information, including the results of testing, to homeowners on this and other purity issues. I've read a number of articles and research documents. Frankly, I'm convinced that my brain is safe from lead poisoning. On the other hand, it does not seem to be safe from being 63 years old.

I think if I had little kids (shudder) I might replace the pipe just to be double sure.

I actually have the lead intake pipe "insured" with a replacement program provided by the water company and keep hoping it will someday break and need their "free" replacement. No sign of anything yet, however.

[Lawrence Wasserman]

I lived in a small town in Pennsylvania in the early sixties. During that time they repaved the street & redid the water & sewer mains. The pipes from the water main to individual houses were lead pipe.

[default]

I've got a lead drain on my kitchen sink, still.

[default]

The lead caulking in cast-iron pipe-joints probably never even gets wet. It's only there to hold the oakum in place.

[Edwin Pawlowski]

OMG !!!!! You are going to poison the guys down at the sewer treatment plant.

[effi]

from same link posted elsewhere in this thread

"...Vitruvius, who wrote during the time of Augustus, indicates that the Romans knew of the danger of lead pipes...Abundant, easily malleable, and with a low melting point, lead (plumbum) was ideal for the production of water pipes, which were fabricated by plumbarii (plumbers) in a variety of diameters from rolled sheets and fitted together (Vitruvius, VIII.6.1ff). Such pipes were extensively used but known to be a potential source of soluble lead."

[BinaryBillTheSailor]

During the "Big Dig" project in Boston, Massachucetts, USA, they uncovered many pieces of old city water pipes that were made from hollow tree trunks. These were still in use, and maybe over 200 years old.

BB

[Duane Bozarth]

Tom Miller wrote: ...

...

That would be a slightly different fashion of "founded", though I think...there were settlers around for quite some time, they just got around to actually organizing the town later would be the way that sounds.

In our case, there weren't any dwellings in the area about a 30 mile radius) other than a few dugouts much before the railroad chose the particular route (bypassing several other either existing or speculator-platted townsites) which ended up here. Then, essentially overnight, all of the former county seat moved to the new terminus and a town of about 3000 came into being in about six months. Little rough 'round the edges for a while, but that's yeat another story... :)

The Cimarron cut-off of the Sante Fe Trail did pass about 20 miles northwest of town but that was about the only route of any real organized travel in the area prior to the railroad laying tracks. Dodge City and the other cattle terminal locations are still another 60 to 100 miles further east and north on the old Santa Fe lines...this was the Rock Island. Will Rogers made his first cattle drive as a youngster right after leaving home from a ranch down in the TX panhandle across the OK panhandle to the new western lots.

I'll post one last note when I find out about lead laterals...