From plumbing plumbosolvency

Lead in Drinking Water. The naturally soft, slightly acidic, plumbosolvent water of the Loch Katrine water supply for the Glasgow area was recognized many years ago to release lead from the lead pipes and tanks in the domestic plumbing of the Victorian and subsequent (even post-World War II) eras. ... 

U.S. studies of plumbosolvency in the 1970s and 1980s clearly indicated that there was a high correlation between soft, acidic water and associated lead surface corrosivity and that the overall U.S. picture for contamination frequencies of water by Pb was a variable one. U.S. national household tap water lead surveys (Patterson and O Brien, 1979 U.S. EPA/Levin, 1986 McCabe et al., 1970 Craun and McCabe, 1975) showed (1) one-sixth (16%) of U.S. tap water lead levels were >20 pg/1 (2) 100% of residences with new plumbing with recently soldered connections in copper systems showed Pb s20 pg/1 and that (3) for the sampling year 1988, a total of 42 million U.S. residents had some exposure to water Pb >20pg/l, about 34 million from older housing exposures and 8 million from newly constructed residences (U.S. ATSDR, 1988). 

If applicable to City C more widely, then the influence of dilution from non-lead premise plumbing extends significantly further than the first litre sample. It is therefore possible that the plumbosolvency of City C s water supplies is significantly higher than is apparent from the synthetic compliance data summarised in Table 7.1. 

This flawed situation is made worse because it will vary, as demonstrated by both the results of the LCR surveys undertaken by utilities (ref City A) and modelling, and it cannot provide any rehable or robust basis for the optimisation of plumbosolvency control. The contribution of lead to drinking water from premise plumbing appeared to be more significant in City A than City C, both of which are in the US, possibly because brass pipes are more common in City A. 

From the outset of studies in Glasgow it was clear that potential problems existed with respect to the levels of environmental lead exposure (Goldberg, 1984). Our experience of this suggested that the problem was linked to soft plumbosolvent water supplies and lead plumbing, and consequent increases in blood lead concentration in the general population of the West of Scotland... 

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