[jaggederest]

The lead in those joints never touches liquid. It's a sealant on the back of the oakum, which is what does the actual water contacting.

Also, nearly all water supplies (municipal, at least) are pH adjusted to be slightly basic, which causes lead to form lead carbonates and oxides, which is (basically) insoluble in cold water. Still good policy to replace lead supply lines, but not a crisis unless you allow your water quality to fluctuate (ala Flint or a number of other US cities, sadly)

[Scoundreller]

More recently, beyond pH control, cities are doing orthophosphte corrosion control. Nearly universal in UK but hit and miss in other places.

https://www.haldimandcounty.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Or...

A big source of lead can be recently sweated copper lines (takes a while for the corrosion control to coat it), but lead solder isn’t supposed to be in potable use anymore. And old fixtures!

Even newer “lead-free” fixtures aren’t 0% lead.

https://www.epa.gov/sdwa/questions-and-answers-about-final-l...

[jaggederest]

Yes I've found it's very frustrating looking for "genuinely zero lead" brass and bronze. Almost all scrap has lead in it to some degree, and even new metal often has a trace.

[mildchalupa]

Lead free brass is still 0.2% or less. Mitsubishi makes it. "Eco brass".

I'm not sure it's brass anymore without the lead.

Why does it seem that the better a material works the worse it is for humans.

[TEP_Kim_Il_Sung]

Remove about 82% of lead from bronze using this one weird trick!

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/250155103_Removal_o...

[jaggederest]

Neat, this dovetails with another interest of mine, pottery. NaF is "sodium feldspar" and Ca-Si compounds are "wollastonite" among others. Both useful as fluxes in metal casting, in addition to their pottery uses.

[Scoundreller]

I was hoping for something involving a particle accelerator and making gold.