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How about Chicago: > The biggest reason is that essentially Chicago and other cities around Illinois required the use of lead service lines all the way until 1

How about Chicago: > The biggest reason is that essentially Chicago and other cities around Illinois required the use of lead service lines all the way until 1986, long after it was recognized that lead was poisonous and other cities had stopped using it. A decade after other cities had stopped using it Chicago and other cities in Illinois were not only using it but requiring the use of lead long after everybody else. [0] https://news.wttw.com/2021/03/24/chicago-has-more-lead-service-pipes-any-other-us-city-illinois-most-any-state https://news.wttw.com/2021/03/24/chicago-has-more-lead-servi...

pdovy 5y ago
Not only that, but it's really difficult to get the service line replaced even if you're willing to pay for it. We went through the exercise a few years ago. It can be difficult to find a plumbing service willing to do this kind of work because not only do they need a special certification (makes sense) but the company has to put up something like a $5000 bond on their work with the city. On top of that replacing the portion of the line that goes from the shutoff to the main requires digging up the street, so it can only be done if your street is not currently on a "moratorium" because it was recently repaved. Finally, the city charges a significant amount in permitting fees before you even get to paying for the plumbing service, roadwork repair and landscaping. We finally gave up on that project and given the relatively low level leeching into our water just decided that we could live with using water filters specifically designed to remove lead for any water that our kids drink / cook with. If Chicago was really serious about tackling this they could start with waiving permitting fees and bond requirements and streamline the process for managing the part of the process that occurs on city property. That'd at least make replacing these more tractable during a remodel.
- jahnu 5y ago
  That's incredible. What sort of levels do you have to put up with? Is there any kind of monitor you can install to detect a spike?
  - OldHand2018 5y ago
    The OP mentioned that this was a few years ago. Things are different now. Literally one month ago Illinois became the second state to legally require all lead pipes to be replaced [1]. I do believe that the Chicago city ordinance of last year waives all permitting fees now. I am not sure how it is going to be paid for: public money? homeowner pays? [1] https://www.ilga.gov/legislation/BillStatus.asp?DocNum=3739&GAID=16&DocTypeID=HB&LegId=132788&SessionID=110&GA=102 https://www.ilga.gov/legislation/BillStatus.asp?DocNum=3739&...
    - dylan604 5y ago
      > I am not sure how it is going to be paid for: public money? homeowner pays? I'd suggest that the Union that voted to keep the lead as a requirement pay. /evilgrin
  - pdovy 5y ago
    IIRC the level after running the water for 5 min in the morning was around 1 PPB, so not high enough to freak out about, but not zero. I just generally assume that I should not give my kids water straight from the tap, because the level _could_ spike for various reasons like them working on the water main, etc. As someone else pointed out, Chicago has made some changes here - and they plan to eventually remove all service lines. That said - this is Chicago. The mayor had a goal to remove 650 lines this year and there was a story in the Chicago Tribune recently that so far that number is ... 3. For context there are ~400k lines to replace.
- dylan604 5y ago
  >they could start with waiving permitting fees and bond requirements This was my first thought as well, then I remembered Chicago.
dwohnitmok 5y ago
Interestingly enough, of all the environmental hazards caused by large corporations, here's a rare example of one where this was primarily caused by a union, which while not opposed to the overall removal of lead, demanded the use of pipes which required specialized knowledge to install, which precluded non-brazed copper and plastic pipes used elsewhere in the nation, and effectively made lead pipes the only viable option. On the surface, finally after a decade-long fight, the plumber's union, despite objections by its union spokespeople, said in 1986 it would defer to the city council after the matter was decided at the federal level, but in that decade, long after other cities had banned lead pipes, lead pipes were still a required part of Chicago building code. https://www.npr.org/local/309/2020/09/11/911903152/here-s-mayor-lori-lightfoot-s-plan-to-remove-chicago-s-lead-pipes https://www.npr.org/local/309/2020/09/11/911903152/here-s-ma...
- floor2 5y ago
  This is why the "right vs left" style of thinking drives me crazy. Unions are constantly doing evil things, usually for the same greedy and power-hungry reasons as any corporate board, and to the same detriment of society at large, but because we think of unions as being on "our side" and latch onto this romanticized notion of the unions of the 1800s they get a pass. The police and prison guard unions constantly do horrible things to increase incarceration rates, erode civil rights and remove accountability. Labor unions fight against improvements that would make their industries pollute less if it makes their jobs harder or would replace union-dues-paying members with technology or non-union jobs. And they constantly create artificial monopolies and cartels far worse than any of the corporate behavior, which create situations like the pilot unions where senior pilots get huge salaries and cushy routes while entry-level pilots are treated like slaves, or where you're not allowed to plug in your laptop charger to a wall outlet because only a union electrician can touch it. I wish society was better at recognizing "this group is harming society for the benefit of themselves" can be applied everywhere- corporations, unions, branches of government, etc
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    Unions are simply businesses that make labor available to companies. Any notion that they are something different from a business is mistaken. Attempts by unions to use government to make themselves legal monopolies are just as bad as any other business using government to do that.
krrrh 5y ago
It seems like the lead blood level indicator has been removed from this site, but a friend showed me this map of homicide rates vs one with lead levels from 18 years prior[0] and there was a pretty strong correlation. Obviously there are confounders, but Kevin Drum’s decade old article positing that lead was a major contributor to the crime wave and subsequent reduction is pretty compelling. [1] EDIT: aside, but maybe one of the most depressing things I’ve ever learned is the high levels of lead in the ink used to wrap various Mexican candy. [2] and this 2014 article [3] on lead levels in Mexican kids where the mean levels exceed the upper acceptable level in the US. There are few things that cause me more distress than the failure to comprehensively tackle this issue worldwide. [0] https://chicagohealthatlas.org/indicators/lead-poisoning https://chicagohealthatlas.org/indicators/lead-poisoning [1] https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/02/lead-exposure-gasoline-crime-increase-children-health/ https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/02/lead-exposur... [2] https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-xpm-2004-05-14-0405140326-story.html https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-xpm-2004-05-14-04051... [3] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25459328/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25459328/ “Our results indicate that more than 15% of the population will experience a decrement of more than 5 IQ points from lead exposure. The analysis also leads us to believe that lead is responsible for 820,000 disability-adjusted life-years for lead-induced mild mental retardation for children aged 0 to 4 years.”
- jimbob45 5y ago
  Isn't it possible that places that are too poor to reliably remove potential lead exposure from their environment are also poor enough to attract crime in general? This makes the assumption that poorness and crime are correlated, which I recently learned is not a universal truth.
  - jonny_eh 5y ago
    > This makes the assumption that poorness and crime are correlated, which I recently learned is not a universal truth. Two variables can be correlated, without being a universal truth.
    - 5y ago
eigenhombre 5y ago
A couple years ago we had a pipe in our courtyard, buried at about 1.5m depth, burst in the middle of a cold spell. Suddenly an icy river appeared in the middle of our yard. Fixing it took a crew of four guys several hours to manually dig a grave-sized pit and splice out the bad section (my hat is still off to them -- it was well below freezing when it happened). I still have the 7" (18cm) section of pipe they removed -- it's an impressively heavy, several pounds at least. There is an absolutely seriously huge amount of lead in just about everyone's yards here in Chicago, in the form of pipes. What's less clear is how much of that lead winds up in bodies, to what resulting health impact. People need help making judgements about relative risk -- sadly, the article is not helpful in that regard.
t0mbstone 5y ago
Kind of makes you wonder how much of Chicago's violence and crime issues are exacerbated by lead poisoning of their citizens...
beerandt 5y ago
While never "safe", lead pipes were relatively safer before the epa started pushing chlorine alternatives. High concentration chlorine (and flouride, where used) were reactive to contaminants such that they were often chemically/ electrically attracted to the lead pipes (clay soil and other environmental factors played a role), and the pipes leeched contaminants from the water. Lower concentrations of chlorine and any concentration of most chlorine-alternatives not only allow water to leech from the lead pipes, but it also can reverse the previous process, such that decades of leeched chemicals and contaminants deposited in/on the lead (and other) pipes are released back into the water, at a much higher rate and concentration. Washington DC went through this issue [0] in what was a huge public embarrassment, at least within the civil engineering community. It left the EPA with a black eye in what was supposed to be a landmark and example-setting project. Now that it's known to happen, better precautions can be taken, but it's absolutely still an issue, especially in places like Detroit, where the surviving lead pipes were largely the service lines on the user side of the water meter. (Remediation and upgrades to water distribution systems often stops at the meter, including design considerations.) [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_contamination_in_Washington,_D.C.,_drinking_water https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_contamination_in_Washingt...

pdovy 5y ago

Not only that, but it's really difficult to get the service line replaced even if you're willing to pay for it. We went through the exercise a few years ago. It can be difficult to find a plumbing service willing to do this kind of work because not only do they need a special certification (makes sense) but the company has to put up something like a $5000 bond on their work with the city. On top of that replacing the portion of the line that goes from the shutoff to the main requires digging up the street, so it can only be done if your street is not currently on a "moratorium" because it was recently repaved. Finally, the city charges a significant amount in permitting fees before you even get to paying for the plumbing service, roadwork repair and landscaping. We finally gave up on that project and given the relatively low level leeching into our water just decided that we could live with using water filters specifically designed to remove lead for any water that our kids drink / cook with. If Chicago was really serious about tackling this they could start with waiving permitting fees and bond requirements and streamline the process for managing the part of the process that occurs on city property. That'd at least make replacing these more tractable during a remodel.

jahnu 5y ago
That's incredible. What sort of levels do you have to put up with? Is there any kind of monitor you can install to detect a spike?
- OldHand2018 5y ago
  The OP mentioned that this was a few years ago. Things are different now. Literally one month ago Illinois became the second state to legally require all lead pipes to be replaced [1]. I do believe that the Chicago city ordinance of last year waives all permitting fees now. I am not sure how it is going to be paid for: public money? homeowner pays? [1] https://www.ilga.gov/legislation/BillStatus.asp?DocNum=3739&GAID=16&DocTypeID=HB&LegId=132788&SessionID=110&GA=102 https://www.ilga.gov/legislation/BillStatus.asp?DocNum=3739&...
  - dylan604 5y ago
    > I am not sure how it is going to be paid for: public money? homeowner pays? I'd suggest that the Union that voted to keep the lead as a requirement pay. /evilgrin
- pdovy 5y ago
  IIRC the level after running the water for 5 min in the morning was around 1 PPB, so not high enough to freak out about, but not zero. I just generally assume that I should not give my kids water straight from the tap, because the level _could_ spike for various reasons like them working on the water main, etc. As someone else pointed out, Chicago has made some changes here - and they plan to eventually remove all service lines. That said - this is Chicago. The mayor had a goal to remove 650 lines this year and there was a story in the Chicago Tribune recently that so far that number is ... 3. For context there are ~400k lines to replace.
dylan604 5y ago
>they could start with waiving permitting fees and bond requirements This was my first thought as well, then I remembered Chicago.

dwohnitmok 5y ago

Interestingly enough, of all the environmental hazards caused by large corporations, here's a rare example of one where this was primarily caused by a union, which while not opposed to the overall removal of lead, demanded the use of pipes which required specialized knowledge to install, which precluded non-brazed copper and plastic pipes used elsewhere in the nation, and effectively made lead pipes the only viable option. On the surface, finally after a decade-long fight, the plumber's union, despite objections by its union spokespeople, said in 1986 it would defer to the city council after the matter was decided at the federal level, but in that decade, long after other cities had banned lead pipes, lead pipes were still a required part of Chicago building code. https://www.npr.org/local/309/2020/09/11/911903152/here-s-mayor-lori-lightfoot-s-plan-to-remove-chicago-s-lead-pipes https://www.npr.org/local/309/2020/09/11/911903152/here-s-ma...

floor2 5y ago
This is why the "right vs left" style of thinking drives me crazy. Unions are constantly doing evil things, usually for the same greedy and power-hungry reasons as any corporate board, and to the same detriment of society at large, but because we think of unions as being on "our side" and latch onto this romanticized notion of the unions of the 1800s they get a pass. The police and prison guard unions constantly do horrible things to increase incarceration rates, erode civil rights and remove accountability. Labor unions fight against improvements that would make their industries pollute less if it makes their jobs harder or would replace union-dues-paying members with technology or non-union jobs. And they constantly create artificial monopolies and cartels far worse than any of the corporate behavior, which create situations like the pilot unions where senior pilots get huge salaries and cushy routes while entry-level pilots are treated like slaves, or where you're not allowed to plug in your laptop charger to a wall outlet because only a union electrician can touch it. I wish society was better at recognizing "this group is harming society for the benefit of themselves" can be applied everywhere- corporations, unions, branches of government, etc
- WalterBright 5y ago
  Unions are simply businesses that make labor available to companies. Any notion that they are something different from a business is mistaken. Attempts by unions to use government to make themselves legal monopolies are just as bad as any other business using government to do that.

krrrh 5y ago

It seems like the lead blood level indicator has been removed from this site, but a friend showed me this map of homicide rates vs one with lead levels from 18 years prior[0] and there was a pretty strong correlation. Obviously there are confounders, but Kevin Drum’s decade old article positing that lead was a major contributor to the crime wave and subsequent reduction is pretty compelling. [1] EDIT: aside, but maybe one of the most depressing things I’ve ever learned is the high levels of lead in the ink used to wrap various Mexican candy. [2] and this 2014 article [3] on lead levels in Mexican kids where the mean levels exceed the upper acceptable level in the US. There are few things that cause me more distress than the failure to comprehensively tackle this issue worldwide. [0] https://chicagohealthatlas.org/indicators/lead-poisoning https://chicagohealthatlas.org/indicators/lead-poisoning [1] https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/02/lead-exposure-gasoline-crime-increase-children-health/ https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/02/lead-exposur... [2] https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-xpm-2004-05-14-0405140326-story.html https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-xpm-2004-05-14-04051... [3] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25459328/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25459328/ “Our results indicate that more than 15% of the population will experience a decrement of more than 5 IQ points from lead exposure. The analysis also leads us to believe that lead is responsible for 820,000 disability-adjusted life-years for lead-induced mild mental retardation for children aged 0 to 4 years.”

jimbob45 5y ago
Isn't it possible that places that are too poor to reliably remove potential lead exposure from their environment are also poor enough to attract crime in general? This makes the assumption that poorness and crime are correlated, which I recently learned is not a universal truth.
- jonny_eh 5y ago
  > This makes the assumption that poorness and crime are correlated, which I recently learned is not a universal truth. Two variables can be correlated, without being a universal truth.
  - 5y ago

eigenhombre 5y ago

A couple years ago we had a pipe in our courtyard, buried at about 1.5m depth, burst in the middle of a cold spell. Suddenly an icy river appeared in the middle of our yard. Fixing it took a crew of four guys several hours to manually dig a grave-sized pit and splice out the bad section (my hat is still off to them -- it was well below freezing when it happened). I still have the 7" (18cm) section of pipe they removed -- it's an impressively heavy, several pounds at least. There is an absolutely seriously huge amount of lead in just about everyone's yards here in Chicago, in the form of pipes. What's less clear is how much of that lead winds up in bodies, to what resulting health impact. People need help making judgements about relative risk -- sadly, the article is not helpful in that regard.

t0mbstone 5y ago

Kind of makes you wonder how much of Chicago's violence and crime issues are exacerbated by lead poisoning of their citizens...

beerandt 5y ago

While never "safe", lead pipes were relatively safer before the epa started pushing chlorine alternatives. High concentration chlorine (and flouride, where used) were reactive to contaminants such that they were often chemically/ electrically attracted to the lead pipes (clay soil and other environmental factors played a role), and the pipes leeched contaminants from the water. Lower concentrations of chlorine and any concentration of most chlorine-alternatives not only allow water to leech from the lead pipes, but it also can reverse the previous process, such that decades of leeched chemicals and contaminants deposited in/on the lead (and other) pipes are released back into the water, at a much higher rate and concentration. Washington DC went through this issue [0] in what was a huge public embarrassment, at least within the civil engineering community. It left the EPA with a black eye in what was supposed to be a landmark and example-setting project. Now that it's known to happen, better precautions can be taken, but it's absolutely still an issue, especially in places like Detroit, where the surviving lead pipes were largely the service lines on the user side of the water meter. (Remediation and upgrades to water distribution systems often stops at the meter, including design considerations.) [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_contamination_in_Washington,_D.C.,_drinking_water https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_contamination_in_Washingt...