[BearhatBeer]

I always run the water in the bathroom and kitchen until it's super cold, letting me know I've gotten to the stuff fresh out of the main. But I was trained to do this because when I was a kid we had some lead pipes in our home, heh.

[hilbert42]

"But I was trained to do this because when I was a kid we had some lead pipes in our home, heh."

There were no lead water pipes in our home but lead pipes were used to couple gas meters to iron pipes presumably to make installation easier. What was worrying was that all the street water mains were made of asbestos cement.

Decades ago, when I first traveled to France to visit relatives I noticed that all the water plumbing in their home was lead.

When I commenced on it and the dangers they thought I was a little eccentric and commented that that was the norm in that area of Paris and no one had become sick from the lead pipes.

My only comment is that my French cousins who are roughly the same age as I am are much smarter than me. (Pb is supposed to dull the brains of kids so what went wrong here?)

[rcme]

Lead water pipes get coated with minerals in the water, especially in areas with hard water. Once this happens they are "safe" to use.

[Kirby64]

Unless the water doesn't have the appropriate corrosion inhibitors, like what happened in Flint. Then it'll leech out. It's common that it will be coated in minerals, but it's no guarantee.

[hilbert42]

It would be very informative to compare the chemical composition of the water in Flint with that as I described in Paris. The immediate observation is that with Flint the Pb was already in the water, presumably with Paris the supply was clean (or comparatively so) and the only chance for it to get into the water would be household pipes.

Clearly the French weren't overly concerned about it. Like most of the EU they overregulate everything and presumably would have mandated the pipes be changed if they thought them a problem.

[keep_reading]

Or if the corrosion inhibitors actually cause more lead to be leached like the water treatment lab found in Madison, WI, so they rejected the plan and replaced the lead pipes instead

https://www.npr.org/2016/03/31/472567733/avoiding-a-future-c...