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Comment by more_corn | Hacker News Reader

Wait, we still use lead pipes for drinking water?

Just one example, but in the city of Chicago, over 400K homes still get their tap water through leaded lines. The city will get an exemption to the 10 year replacement requirement due to the sheer number of pipes that need replacing meaning another 40-50 years of lead pipes based on replacing 10K/year [0].

It's pretty crazy.

- [0] https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2024/04/01/1241470...

Sure, but isn't this the same place that mandated lead pipes for most of its existence?

Not sure I understand the point you’re trying to make.

Regardless of the history, it’s a big issue that requires a massive effort to solve.

The point is when government does something malicious explicitly to make money, the last thing they should ever get is an exemption. If our society was equitable the politicians that were involved in that farce would be required to personally show up and remove leaded pipes from people's residence.

Why do you believe this was malicious and/or explicitly to make money? The use of lead pipes was a well established practice that started in the early 1800s and continued until the federal government banned them in 1986.

The original people involved had no awareness of the danger. As awareness grew, you could make the case that people in the 80s could have stopped installing these pipes sooner, but by then, most of the system was already in place and the continued installations were based on 150+ years of precedent and policy.

A majority of the decision makers (not necessarily just politicians) responsible for the policies and a majority of the pipes are dead.

The exemption is a matter of pure practicality. There are only so many crews capable of doing this work and so much of the water system that can be disrupted at one time.

My understanding is that in a lot of places, the water has essentially coated the pipes with minerals, so the water doesn’t actually touch the lead, and it ends up not being as large a problem as you’d think. I think the problems arise when municipal water changes something that lets the water dissolve away those minerals (make it acidic, for example) and start interacting directly with the lead.

This is the case in my area; our service is almost 100 years old. You just need to run the water for minute if you haven't used it recently, since the leech is very slow.

Another issue besides tearing up the whole front yard (our line is 8' deep) is it would likely destroy the ancient ceramic sewer line. An upgrade can get expensive quick

> Another issue besides tearing up the whole front yard (our line is 8' deep) is it would likely destroy the ancient ceramic sewer line. An upgrade can get expensive quick

Normally you're supposed to put away 1-2% of the home's value into a repair/maintenance fund. That way you won't get hit too hard for all the random crap that crops up when owning a house.

Yup, some infrastructure is ancient. From memory, correct me if I'm wrong, it was relatively safe in e.g. Flint because an inner lining of limescale had formed, but they changed something in the water causing that lining to deteriorate.

But redoing infrastructure is a huge and expensive undertaking, also given that 100+ years ago they weren't as diligent in mapping out things underground and they put sewage, electricity and internet in the same ground since then.

IIRC an in-between solution is lining the pipes with an inner plastic one (they have Ways), but that may not be possible everywhere and reduces the flow capacity.

Anyway there's 2.2 million miles of water piping in the US apparently, that'll take a while.

> also given that 100+ years ago they weren't as diligent in mapping out things underground and they put sewage, electricity and internet in the same ground since then.

I have some experience with the local utility companies in my city and it's shocking how often they don't know where their own lines are, even ones that are only a decade or two old. I can only imagine how lacking the knowledge is from 100+ year old infrastructure.

There are an unknown number of hollowed out tree logs still in service and being used to transport drinking water.

https://www.kake.com/news/wichita-used-to-use-trees-as-water...

Every once in a while they dig one up by accident in Boston. Many ~ancient cities don't even know where all the pipes are, or how they're connected. It'll be a colossal project.

Unavailable in EU, so here we go; https://archive.is/9I14n

Our (1) infrastructure is ancient. PG&E started the Camp Fire wildfire in 2018 when a electrical transmission line built in 1921 failed (only lasted 97 years). That killed 85 people.

1: America for sure, I would suspect other countries might not be as bad, as they would have generally electrified more recently- just not that many electrical transmission lines in Romania in 1921- and are more likely to have had to rebuild after wartime.

Because I was curious: the deadliest wildfire in California's history killed 0.00021% of the state's 2018 population.

Many places have 100+ year old lead service lines.

You'd be surprised. Many places, including my neighborhood in New Jersey, don't have any access to drinking water at all. We are cooking with and drinking bottled water for the foreseeable future.

Most GA planes still use leaded gas!

Wait till you learn that hot water sometimes has leaded pipes while the cold will be non-lead.

That's not a huge problem, though, unless you drink the hot tap water.

Which isn't the best if you have a water softener, as the hot side typically has some salt in it as well.

Water softeners don't use salt to soften the water, they use salt to clean the hardness off the negatively charged plastic beads that the water flows through. At night, when the water isn't being used, the water supply is temporarily used to flush water through the salt block and basically rinse out the beads, which is then drained.

You should only get a trace amount of sodium (milligrams per cup of water I imagine) just from any tiny bit of salty water that wasn't backwashed out during the rinse cycle, but nothing more. If your water has salty taste that means you probably need a new water softener

I thought water softners typically used an "ion exchange resin"[1] where the hard water (magnesium, calcium) ions are swapped for sodium ions[2]. So you should be able to taste some sodium.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion-exchange_resin

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_softening#Ion-exchange_r...

I was under the impression its simply best practice to not drink water from the shower/hot faucet. I've never tasted salt myself, just something I'd been told over the years.

Good to know, thank you.

The main reason not to drink hot water is that it can be sitting around in a tank for a while, and it isn't held at a temperature which kills all bacteria.

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