Water-lead levels Massachusetts

Charles River. Water from the river was more polluted than that from the wells, and therefore had to be filtered. The company installed a slow-sand filtration system, which not only eliminated bacterial contaminants, it also reduced the lead solvency of the river water." The introduction of these measures in 1902 and 1903 reduced the average water-lead levels in area homes from 1.39 ppm (627 times the modern EPA standard) to 0.27 ppm (175 times the modern EPA standard). Although 0.27 ppm is a high lead level by modern standards, it was well below the 0.5-ppm threshold then considered safe by the Massachusetts Board of Health." ... 

Current EPA standards allow water to contain 0.0015 parts of lead per 100,000. The columns divide the lead levels observed in Massachusetts in 1900 by this modern standard. 

Tables 3.1 and 3.2 indicate that the lead levels in Massachusetts tap water varied greatly from town to town. The primary source of this...

Abortifadent equivalent and modem EPA standard. Sources See notes to table 3.2. for derivation of abortifadent equivalent Hall (1905). For lead levels in Massachusetts tap water, see Massachusetts State Board of Health (1900), pp. 490-493. Note The y-axis has a logarithmic scale. 

Water lead and infant mortality in Massachusetts, 1900. Sources Massachusetts State Board of Health (1900), pp. 490-493 Troesken (2006b) Massachusetts State Board of Health (1899). See also appendix A for data on births. Note The on the trend line is 0.176, with an estimated slope of 10.618, which is significant at the 0.033 level (one-tailed test). 

What were the practical consequences of using adult health outcomes to gauge lead levels in local water supplies Misdirected by this approach, how long did it take local officials to discover they had a water lead problem Were officials reluctant to respond if there were only a handful of adults and older children made ill More importantly, what did this approach imply for the health outcomes of pregnant women and their unborn children To answer these questions, the following section describes how the water company in Milford, Massachusetts responded to discoveries of excess lead in its water supply. What follows is a best-case scenario the water company in question responded constructively as soon as it became aware of lead-related illnesses among adults and older children. (Chapter 8 presents a worst-case scenario.)... 

Similarly, in 1928, two scientists from Illinois took water samples from across the state to assess lead levels. Illinois water was very hard and so highly mineralized that analysts had considerable difficulty in separating the trace of lead present from the water s many other residual elements but they were able to make some progress. Table 6.1 reports the measured lead levels for several small and medium sized towns in Illinois. Overall, the lead levels in this hard water state were much lower than those observed in Massachusetts, a soft water state, some twenty... 

Water lead and free-C02 levels After ordinary use. Source Massachusetts State Board of Health (1900). 

On changes in the lead levels in the Milford-Hopedale water supply, see Weston (1920). On the standards adopted by the Massachusetts State Board of Health as to a safe amount of lead in the water, see Committee on Service Pipes (1917), pp. 355-357. 

Based on these sources, a sample of seventy-four Massachusetts towns was constructed. For most towns in the sample, there is information available about the following (municipal-level) characteristics in the year 1900 age-specific death rates cause-specific death rates population whether the town used lead water pipes or some other material such as iron hardness of the local water supply source of local water supply (i.e., above ground or below ground) and proportion of water mains installed during the previous ten years. For a small subset of the full sample (about twenty towns), there is also data on the amount of lead contained in household tap water from each town. 

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