• @[email protected]
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    119 hours ago

    Most of the buildings built here since WWII and into the 70’s have lead pipes. There’s a push to test water quality in homes, and to have the pipes replaced, but in the meantime I use a Brita pitcher with a lead filter.

    • @[email protected]
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      217 hours ago

      This is why Obama didn’t really address the flint Michigan water situation. Once they started testing there, other cities would start. Boom, national crisis. ALLEGEDLY the coating that forms on the inside protects against lead poisoning but, who knows. And if chemistry changes drastically, like Flint’s case, it can remove that naturally occurring coating.

      • @[email protected]
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        217 hours ago

        At my previous apartment, I had a city employee test my water. They let faucet run for about 10 minutes, then took a sample and got basically immediate results and told me the pipes were leaded. If that’s all it takes to test positive, then the protection can’t be that effective. The tech was in my apartment for less than 15 minutes, and 10 minutes of that was just letting the faucet run.

        They tell us that there is no safe amount of lead, and they can detect the presence instantly. That tells me there’s not much protection. Even if it takes 10 minutes to get past that protective layer, after taking a shower your water wouldn’t be safe anymore until there’s another buildup.

        • @[email protected]
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          113 hours ago

          Yeah that’s what the gov agency said about it around the time of the Flint water crisis. “Allegedly” is the key word here. Thats when I read a whole bunch of research on it. Could have been complete bullshit, who knows.

          You think about that and the actions of the USSR gov, depicted in the HBO series Chernobyl, and you have to wonder if the US response would be much different. Three Mile Island would probably like a word.

          • @[email protected]
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            112 hours ago

            There was steel rationing for the war effort during WWII, so they stopped using steel to make pipes. Then it wasn’t until the 70’s that they decided to ban the use of lead pipes in new construction, but never forced anyone to remove their existing pipes.

        • @[email protected]
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          116 hours ago

          The ten minutes is to get a lower reading not a higher one. The longer the same water sits in those pipes the more shit it absorbs from the pipes.