Lead service pipes

On the other hand, properties falsely identified as problem properties have plumbing systems similar to undetected problem properties. Again 80 % of these properties have lead service pipes, and about 20 % have lead plmnbing. These properties are... 

Even though test areas and properties were selected where the lead was expected to be significant (69 % of the tested properties had lead service pipes and/or lead plumbing), only 44 % of the composite proportional samples exceeded the PV of 10 igl. About 20 % of all composite proportional samples exceeded the intermediate PV of 25 igf[ and 19 % exceeded the value of 50 i. ... 

The main source of lead in drinking water is from lead service pipes and the lead pipes inside dwellings and in the older districts of some Cities and Towns, up to 90% houses may have a lead pipe. Problems can also be caused by lead leaching from devices, pipes and plumbing components made of brass, and from lead-containing solder. 

The main source of lead in drinking water is from lead service pipes and the lead pipes inside dwellings. 

Based on limited data, at least 260,000 lead service connections are believed to exist in Canada. Estimated in 1990, there were believed to be about 3.3 million lead service connections in the US (AWWA, 1990). For North America (excluding Mexico) these estimates equate to between 2 and 3 % of dwellings having a lead service pipe, significantly lower than in Europe. 

There are six basic technologies in use today for lead service pipe rehabilitation, namely (i) open-trench, replacement along an existing route, (ii) replacement along a new route, (iii) pipe pulling of a new pipe, (iv) slip lining, (v) pipe coating, and (vi) internal cathodic protection. 

In one City in Eastern England (UK), pipe inspections found that 52% of houses had a lead service pipe but only 5% had internal lead pipe-work. Elsewhere in Europe, it appears from Table 5.3 that die percentage of houses with internal lead pipe-work is much higher in some countries. 

In the US, a schedule for the removal of lead service lines owned by the water system is required by the Lead and Copper Rule, when the system continues to exceed the 90th percentile Action Level for successive monitoring periods. However, domestic lead pipes and residence-owned service line segments are mostly only removed at the discretion of the home or building owner. In Europe at the EU level, there is no regulatory requirement to remove lead service pipes nor domestic lead pipes, although regulations in the UK require a water company to remove their lead service line if the home-owner decides to remove their domestic lead pipes. 

Unit costs of replacing lead service pipes... 

Units costs are likely to range from around 500 to 2,000 per lead service pipe replaced, depending on local labour costs and ground conditions (particularly the extent of paved and road surfaces). In Brussels (Belgium) over the period 2002 to 2008, 38,000 lead connections (owned by the water company) were replaced at a total cost of 15M, averaging 395 per connection. In the Hague... 

For a population of 100,000 and an average residency of 2.5 people per dwelling, the water supply system will serve 40,000 dwellings. If 50% of these dwellings (i.e., 20,000) have a lead service pipe, the replacement cost will be between 10 M and 40 M. If 25% of these dwellings (i.e., 10,000) have a domestic lead pipe, the replacement cost will be between 5 M and 20 M. 

In 1900, the Massachusetts State Board of Health launched an investigation into the amount of lead contained in household tap water in twenty-two municipalities across the state. Health officials took several samples of water from household faucets in these cities after the water had passed through lead service pipes, measured the lead content of these samples, and reported their findings in the annual report of the Board of Health. Officials also reported data on the chemical composition and quaHties of the local water supply, including how hard the water was, and the amount of free-C02 (carbonic acid) it contained. ... 

In the five years after this discovery, the Milford Water Company took several steps to reduce the lead solvency of its water supply. The company began to remove the lead service pipes and replace them with pipes made of safer materials. This, however, was a slow process because replacement was expensive. The company also abandoned the wells it had been using as the city s water sovuce, and began drawing water from the... 

According to the London doctrine, a small amount of carbonic acid in water prompted the formation of an insoluble carbonate of lead on the interior of the pipes. In this way, the London doctrine stated the exact opposite of other variants of the doctrine of protective power. Weak and colorless, carbonic acid is formed by the dissolution of carbon dioxide in water. Adams argued that several prominent chemists in London used this doctrine to justify the proposition that London could have continued to use lead service pipes safely if the city switched to a soft, and more corrosive, water supply. At the time Adams was writing, London drew its water from the river Thames, a hard-water source. Evidence to follow, however, raises serious questions about the London doctrine. 

It is worth noting that Thresh was not the first scientist to present evidence that hard waters could be lead solvent Lauder Lindsay had presented such evidence as early as 1859. Nor was Thresh the last. In 1966, a British physician published an article in the Practitioner arguing that health officials should not simply assume that because a water supply is hard or alkaline it cannot be lead solvent. As evidence for the proposition, he presented data from a rural English town where more than 10 percent of the local population had been lead poisoned by a hard water supply and lead service pipes. °... 

The legacy of the doctrine of protective power was mixed. On the one hand, it helped guide water treatment strategies aimed at reducing the lead solvency in some water supplies. On the other hand, it was applied asymmetrically by cities in their decisions to install lead service pipes. Cities with hard water blindly applied the doctrine to justify their decisions to use lead, ignoring the possibility that hard water sometimes had the capacity to dissolve lead as well. Cities with soft water appear to have... 

Given the elevated risk of lead exposure in towns with soft and acidic water supplies, one might think that lead water pipes would have been less common in cities and towns with corrosive water supplies than in those with less active waters. The opposite was true, however. The more corrosive a town s water supply, the more likely it was to employ lead service pipes. This can be seen in figure 6.7, which is based on a sample of 130 urban water systems in Massachusetts as of 1905. The x-axis is... 

The rulings against Milnes rested on the interpretation of two statutes, the Waterworks Clauses Acts of 1847 and 1863. According to these statutes, the Town of Huddersfield was bound [to] provide and keep in the pipes... a supply of pure and wholesome water. The word of contention here was pipes. If the word pipes included only street mains and not the service pipes that linked homes and street mains, Huddersfield was in compliance with the statutes, because the water was pure and wholesome while contained in the mains, before it entered the lead service pipes. It was only when the water passed through the service pipes that it became impure and tainted with lead. If, however, the word pipes included both street mains and service pipes, it would not have mattered where the water became tainted. Milnes contended that pipes included both street mains and service pipes, while Huddersfield argued that pipes included only street mains. ... 

But the efficacy of these various practices was really beside the point. Even if these products and strategies were effective and cost only a few pennies, having individual consumers purchase and operate their own lead-prevention systems was neither economical nor effective. Consider a hypothetical city that drew its water from a river or nearby lake, and stored it in a large reservoir near the city. Assume that lead service pipes had been installed in the city many years prior. To prevent water-related lead poisoning, the city could have pursued one of the following three strategies ... 

The decision to use lead service pipes in Lowell was made during the 1840s, decades before R. J. Thomas held any position with the town s waterworks. When Lowell politicians first decided to use lead pipes to distribute water, they were fully cognizant of the propensity of local water supplies to dissolve lead from the interior of service pipes. They had been made aware of this danger by a lengthy report written by prominent physicians. The report presented a series of case studies of Lowell-area residents who had been made sick by lead-contaminated water over the preceding ten years.The city, however, ignored the report and installed lead service pipes anyway. 

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