I don't understand this part. We didn't use different sources of lead to make leaded gas and lead pipes, no?
For gasoline, all production had to be centralized in a few refineries. The lead would have been shipped in, and would have been largely the same quality and age, likely coming from the same mine, or geographically close mines. Plus the absolute quantity of lead added to gasoline is relatively small. In the 60 years the US used TEL, we processed about 8 million tons of lead. Averaged out, it's 133 thousand tons a year. It would only take a few mines to provide that much. Probably not more than five or ten, but I can't immediately find good data on this.
One would expect that the lead used in gasoline is pretty homogeneous across time, and that intensive lead use (as in casting into solid metal object like pipes) would use the nearest available source, and use that source for as long as possible.
Fun!
I would like to see a city where pipes are guaranteed leak free, for example by making them double walled with high pressure air in the outer layer, and then seeing if disease levels in the city are lower.
Followed by ecosystem being collected and put back into drinking water, most of which only has pretty lightweight treatment which doesn't even involve testing for any viruses which have snuck through.
Considering the difficulty and cost of repairing underground anything, most of which will be there for many many decades, it's never going to be perfect, but there's a lot of resources that do go into improving this.
I can tell you factually a lot of work goes into measuring leakage, narrowing down what part of the water system it is coming from (most active components are metered in some way, and you can use math to determine where all of the water is not making it through a segment), and correcting those issues where it is cost-effective to do so.
This kind of stuff is typically death by a thousand cuts.
Add on that a lot of the places it leads are under roads that will have to be shut down for weeks/months and you start to realize the costs and impact of fixing these leaks are enormous.
Contamination rarely happens outside of the source of supply, and not somewhere along the pipeline.
Not much, because the water mains pressure keeps nasty things from entering the pipe.
However, when the system is depressurized due to a power outage or due to running out of water, nasty things can happen (stuff entering the water pipes, oxygen from air bubbles causing rust), and that's why after such events boil-off orders are issued for a few weeks afterwards until it can be reasonably assumed that all pipes have been flushed and all air bubbles have gone.
I feel like this is burying the lede.
What can be done to reduce leakage?
>The spelling lede (/ˈliːd/, from Early Modern English) is also used in American English, originally to avoid confusion with the printing press type formerly made from the metal lead or the related typographical term "leading".
Do we really want that? Thousands of people are being killed each year by heat strokes. Keeping those trees alive by its environmental services is much more valuable in terms of lives and also energy saved. Maples have soft big leaves but also reduce the asphalt temperature by 5-10 degrees. If required just plant a tree species that can live with less water.
We've had something close to a drought this summer -- unseasonally long periods without rain. You can see the young trees on the streets and trees in the middle of large parks suffer from it - wilted leaves and leaves dropping earlier than usual. BUT, large old trees seem to be thriving - full canopies, lush, firm leaves.
I've been suspecting the big street trees do so well because they benefit from the dilapidated state of our water delivery infra. It's nice to read of a study that confirms my amateur observations and musings.
In my region, the street trees are usually getting sewer water. Residential service in older houses are usually clay pipes with lead solder that the tree infiltrates. It’s not a problem until the clay pops and roots clog it.
It varies a lot by region and jurisdiction. One of the cities near me made the mistake of using riveted pipe from rolled steel to save money 75 years ago, and regularly has catastrophic main breaks as the rivets aren’t as robust as a regular pipe.
The prudent thing would be to set aside and invest a tiny bit of money every year to fund a replacement, but unfortunately modern economic theory ("run lean") and manufactured income crises (aka, politicians going for lower taxes and utility rates) have led to a lot of infrastructure being utterly dilapidated and no savings left, and now we need to invest untold billions of euros raised from debt to keep it running.
Unfortunately, a lot of the deciders are already dead, and for those that still live, it's fallen out of favor to hold them accountable.
Digging up a pipe and replacing it is actually pretty cheap and easy. Disrupting a main thoroughfare is incredibly expensive in terms of lost productivity, transport, shipping.
[0] 20% apparently https://www.eaufrance.fr/repere-rendement-des-reseaux-deau-p...
I believe some of the plumbing was wood pipes in select very busy parts of the city until somewhat recently, as it was a nightmare to replace.
https://www.marketplace.org/story/2024/05/27/mexico-city-wat...
Maybe ask the rooter company what happens if they end up with equipment trapped jammed down your pipe is all I'm saying.
Any services company that comes out, ens up with breaking their tools because they used inadequate tooling, and causing more damage? I don't know how they managed to foist that on to your parents.
The issue wasn't the tree roots, it was the rooter company's poor investigation. Video scoping a sewer line is trivial these days.
abstractspoon•1d ago
alehlopeh•10h ago
metalman•10h ago
abhiyerra•9h ago
bombcar•9h ago
Plastic either is impervious or completely fucked.
2OEH8eoCRo0•9h ago
bombcar•4h ago
Which is why you want the joints to be someone else’s problem.
HarHarVeryFunny•7h ago
They basically use something like a weed whacker fed down the pipe, except it uses a short bit of chain instead of trimmer line, and will pulverise any intruding roots.
peterbecich•3h ago