[bbatha]

Its not a free for all, but there are some legacy pipes with lead in them. The EPA currently limits the amount of lead measured in drinking water lines. This is where the root of the problem happened in Flint. They had lead pipes that had calcified and were not delivering contaminated water. They changed water sources which changed the chemistry of the water causing the lead to corrode into the water.

[haswell]

There are a lot of legacy lead pipes. 400K homes in Chicago alone supplied by ~50K lead supply lines estimated to require 40-50 years to replace.