Conceivable. And not just that far back. It's been thought that Beethoven's deafness was largely the result of the way wine was stored back in the 18th century.
And what did we learn from history? "The federal government banned the use of leaded pipe and solder in new plumbing systems in 1986, but many remaining pipe networks in older cities and homes predate the policy; the EPA estimates there are still 6 to 10 million lead service lines across the country." - https://greenyplace.com/when-did-they-stop-using-lead-pipes-...
It was known long ago that lead (and other) water pipes develop a passivation layer due to minerals in the water, and the water is adjusted to do so if it doesn't naturally, but everyone knows about the case of Flint, Michigan where they didn't.
Yeah those types of second order problems are really tough in low-intelligence bureaucracies. 1/ Lead is good for pipes!, 2/ lead is bad for health!, 3/ ok we've ripped out half the pipes but it turns out that when we control the mineral mix in the water we can mitigate the lead contamination from pipes that are hard to replace, 4/ let's do something cheaper and not do any due diligence and forget that 3 was done some time ago.
5/ because it's only poor blacks anyway.
Yes, in Hamburg, Germany there are a lot of lead pipes still. When moving there I got to find this out by a letter from the government, that I should know that I have many times over the limit drinking water which I was consuming. I was always telling others to drink the safe tap water ...
Funny. If you say that kind of thing in some of the German subreddits they'll run you out with pitchforks - "Germany has the best water in the world!" is the refrain.
Norway checking in, moved here from the US, and have family in Germany. Norway water is definitely my preference.
"Preference" is not safest.
Why did you tell others to drink tap water if you haven’t verified it’s safe?
Because in the first world it is reasonable to believe that the tap water in major metropolitan areas is potable.
I'm a tap water drinker myself, but only after moving away from a city where water from other areas had to be imported to reach safe levels (according to EU regulations) because several garbage deposits of thousands of tons leaked for decades unhindered:
Almost 2 million tons of garbage, among that 40k tons of toxic waste: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer-Deponie
1 million tons aluminum & other stuffs: https://www.fcp.at/de/projekte/details/sanierung-altlast-n6
One might imagine that diluting such water to reach "safe" levels is not as healthy as water that never saw a toxic waste dump.
It's also not the case that tap water is always safe, even if it's declared to be. During hot summers, there's very often bacterial contamination, requiring addition of chlorine or other antiseptics. But until that is caught, some days might go by.
That sounds unusual. Was that warning letter about lead in the lines from the public utility ( https://www.hamburgwasser.de ), or the pipes internal to the house?
Chicago has so much lead pipe because “lead is so dangerous that only union pipe fitters can work with it”, and the pipe fitters union lobbied to put in more to create more work for themselves. Union leadership should’ve went to jail for that
Avgas still has lead in it unfortunately.
It is also not used by many airplanes.
I think it's ridiculous that landlords are able to rent properties that will give tenants lead poisoning as long as they provide a warning. I have a feeling that many people think tbe warning is just for legal liability and don't realize that their landlord is knowingly poisoning them.
Nobody is being "actively" poisoned except perhaps the consumers of your rhetoric.
The lead develops a layer that keeps it from dissolving into water (much like aluminum develops an oxide layer) and won't hurt anyone as long as the water source doesn't pull a Flint. This is true for pipes both in houses and city pipes upstream.
Is it more dangerous than not, yes. But it's not really an "active" problem.
>Nobody
Anecdotaly, a landlord tried to rent me an apartment with lead. After receiving the warning that complex was built before lead was banned for construction, I asked if they used lead pipes and was ghosted. When I tested the water and it came back positive with lead.
Unfortunately, "lead in the water" is not a boolean, and is extremely dependent on things the landlord doesn't control - especially the chemistry of the municipal water supply. But our legal system makes it easiest to sue the landlord.
Sure, you could rip out all the old metal pipes and replace them with (say) PVC. Even handwaving the expense and issues of that - did you just replace "lead" with "microplastics"?
>is not boolean
There is a concentration of it where it becomes harmful.
>dependent on things the landlord doesn't control
They have the ability to filter water.
> There is a concentration of it where...
Unfortunately, lead seems to follow a "anything above 0.000000000000% is harmful, though more is worse" rule.
> They have the ability to...
True, but there are a lot of filter-worthy things which can be found in drinking water -
https://www.epa.gov/ground-water-and-drinking-water/national...
- so how much filtering, for which contaminants, should they have to do? How often should they have to re-test the (probably municipal) water supply, to verify that their filtering is doing the job? And how much will they mark up the price of water for their tenants, to cover the expenses of all their extra filtering and testing?
Lead service lines are like asbestos, they’re fine if they aren’t disturbed. A layer of minerals builds up on the inside. It’s still best practice to replace them, but excavation and plumbing for one house can be $15-20k.
The city I live in is replacing lead service lines across the entire city and offers low interest financing for homeowners.
Crucially, the water treatment chemistry needs to remain consistent. Changing the process is what caused the lead pipes in Flint to start leaching lead into the water. They changed water suppliers during a budgetary crisis.
From the Wikipedia article:
> In April 2014, during a financial crisis, state-appointed emergency manager Darnell Earley changed Flint's water source from the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (sourced from Lake Huron and the Detroit River) to the Flint River.[7] Residents complained about the taste, smell, and appearance of the water. Officials failed to apply corrosion inhibitors to the water, which resulted in lead from aging pipes leaching into the water supply, exposing around 100,000 residents to elevated lead levels.[8] A pair of scientific studies confirmed that lead contamination was present in the water supply.[9][10] The city switched back to the Detroit water system on October 16, 2015.[11] It later signed a 30-year contract with the new Great Lakes Water Authority (GLWA) on November 22, 2017.[12]
Most likely leaded gasoline from the rise of cars is our bariatric les fascism.
What does that mean?
Meaningful in-home water filtration increasingly seems pretty much mandatory.
The degree of water filtration often requires about having to learn about re-mineralizing.
> The degree of water filtration often requires about having to learn about re-mineralizing.
You can drink distilled water all day every day, you get all the minerals you'd ever need from food. Remineralization post-filters are purely for better taste (subjective of course).
I ate salty products like crazy after year or two on pure water. My doctor told me to drink mineral water or tap water instead of pure water — the problem is gone.
Drinking distilled water can create micro deficiencies that can contribute to things like brain fog, etc depending on the type of water you normally have.
Drinking distilled water strips your body of things that naturally are in water, because no fresh water lake, river, etc is distilled water.
Another key part of distilled water is that it also has fewer electrolytes. Electrolytes to a good degree are our friend. If water already has a bit of magnesium in it, it's helpful, everyone just gets it.
I respect if it's working for you but I have met many folks who it didn't work for.
Remineralization felt like a pain, but like most things it doesn't hurt to try and collect your own experience rather than understand everything before beginning.
Since drinking water can be location based, some water may have more calcium naturally in it, or something else, etc.
This is the internet. It is global. In-home water filtration is a minority situation in the US.
Trying to understand your point.
Water filtration seems to exist plenty inside the US and outside too.