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Comment by AlbertCory | Hacker News Reader

OK, I read that over. It seems to be entirely estimates and "could be." No one's dug up a service line and said, "Yep, there's lead in that."

One GAO report says,

As we reported in 2017, based on the available data, the majority of the 68,000 water systems subject to the Lead and Copper Rule at the time of our review had not been required to replace lead service lines and therefore were not required to conduct complete inventories.

In other words, no one knows.

So while it's not false to say that "Lead pipes are still used in every US state" it's also not provably true. Right?

A good question would be, "why aren't they required to replace lead service lines?" This would be a health benefit beyond any possible doubt.

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I’m not sure why you’re choosing to go down this line if faulty reasoning, but the consist of municipal service lines is not completely mysterious. There’s a difference between knowing the status of every pipe and knowing what the system is generally made up of.

My spouse was on the leadership team of a municipal water district. They knew at the block level where lead (or even wood & lead) service were likely to be, and had prioritized inventories of infrastructure like valves, etc that required replacement. They weren’t pioneers in this area, every water utility does this. As breaks were repaired or other ground work (sewer remediation, new storm drains, etc) they had a capital fund to make replacements. The main remaining place where lead is present is between the water main/service valve and people’s homes. That pipe is usually the financial responsibility of the homeowner, and it’s an expensive job - $5-15k.

The other factor is that the lead issue, like asbestos, is overblown. As long as the civil engineers responsible for the infrastructure aren’t bypassed by criminally negligent political leadership (aka what happened in Flint, MI), there’s no meaningful risk. If you’re using an untreated well, different story.

What's the "faulty reasoning?"

OP's reference said that many states don't provide estimates. You said

> There’s a difference between knowing the status of every pipe and knowing what the system is generally made up of.

So the states don't bother asking the cities, or refuse to aggregate and estimate it, or what?

Your last paragraph also doesn't jibe with the second. If it's the homeowners' responsibility, then where does the "criminally negligent political leadership" come in?

The OP is trying to link a general statement made by an advocacy group to a GAO audit. They have nothing to do with each other. Anyone with even cursory knowledge of the problem domain knows that any water installation before a certain date is a lead line. States and the EPA mandate and audit representative testing of public water supplies.

The criminal negligence in Flint was that, to save money, the state appointed leadership of the City water system knowingly obtained water from an alternate source whose water chemistry caused the lead pipes in Flint to leach out and expose people to the lead in the water. Had they treated the water appropriately, or not changed the water supply, the oxidation in the pipes would have prevented the leaching of lead into the water, as it had for a century.

All of this is well documented.

At the end of the day, it's how much lead is in the water coming out of your taps, right?

Yes, but if you don't have lead infrastructure in your water system, it is extremely difficult to have lead come out of your tap.

If you do have lead pipes, however, it only takes a shift in pH to pull the lead into solution.

Right, and more to the point, it's much easier to check tap water for the presence of lead than to inventory the entire water system (which is also worth doing).

> So while it's not false to say that "Lead pipes are still used in every US state" it's also not provably true. Right?

All you'd need to do to prove the statement is find one in-service lead pipe in each state. Not exactly a high bar. Not sure what the point of nitpicking this is?

Nitpicking? I'd call it "questioning hysteria."

Finding one in-service lead pipe in each state IS a pretty high bar.

A more rational approach would be to look at testing for lead levels in tap water, which we can assume probably does get done by the EPA and other agencies.

Where's the hysteria?

Stating that lead pipes are relatively widespread isn't hysteric. In most cases, lead pipes are harmless, although if the chemical composition of the water changes, that can lead to dangerous lead leaching (see Flint, MI).

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