State of emergency declared after lead and copper found in St. Croix tap water
apnews.com
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https://viconsortium.com/vi-health/virgin-islands-vi-governm...
https://viconsortium.com/vi-wapa/virgin-islands-water-testin...
https://www.viwapa.vi/news-information/press-releases/press-...
https://www.vi.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/2023-State-of-...
https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2023-10/october-2...
Lead: Of the 66 sampling locations, 35 of the first samples exceeded EPA’s 15 ppb Lead Action Level. Results for Lead ranged between 16 ppb and 20,000 ppb. For the second samples, after flushing the water for 3-5 minutes, the levels fell to below the Lead Action level for all but two sample locations.
Copper: Of the 66 sampling locations, 15 of the first samples exceeded EPA’s 1300 ppb Copper Action Level. Results for Copper ranged between 1320 and 137,000 ppb. For the second samples, after flushing the water for 3-5 minutes, the levels fell to below the Copper Action level for all locations.
Note: 20,000 ppb is 20 mg/L, which is ... yeah that's a pretty high dose of lead.
Aka, someone still has lead pipes in their house.
Could maybe be lead pipes leading to the house from the street too.
There are two fixes:
* add phosphates to the water, which reduce the amount of lead that will dissolve. Done in old cities where a large proportion of people still have lead pipes.
* go replace those pipes. Done where only a small chunk of people have lead pipes so it is feasible to replace them all.
It's 20μg/L. It's bad (hence the state of emergency), but not so bad that you would actually see the lead with naked eyes.