13 Jun 2016

News:

Worried About Lead? DC Water’s Tools Help

Screen Shot 2016-06-13 at 2.20.10 PMYou may hear items about lead in the local news, such when there were elevated levels of lead at Capitol Hill elementary schools. Perhaps you’re aware that lead pipes may still bring water to your home in the District of Columbia, or that lead soldering to keep pipes together was used in the District as late as 1987 (even for non-lead pipes). But maybe you are not sure why lead was used in pipes at all, considering how toxic we know it to be. Until the 20th century, pipes were made of lead, which is a very flexible and leak-resistant metal: As a matter of fact, the word plumbing comes from the Latin word for lead (Plumbum). Lead is ubiquitous, and it can still be found in many of the pipes that bring water to your house; it is therefore up to the local utility company (complying with the EPA) to make sure that there is as little trace lead as possible reaching your drinking water, as well as to raise awareness of what is, um, coming down the pike, or the pipe, especially because what leaches lead into your drinking water has more to do with old, corroded pipes, than with the lead itself.

Luckily for us, DC Water has such a series of resources:

A page dedicated to educating the public on lead in lines can be found here: https://www.dcwater.com/lead/

If you want more specific information about lead in your service lines, you can go here: https://dcwater.com/servicelines

And finally, if you want to kill a lot of time and play with a pretty cool map, you can play with the DC Water interactive map that can tell you whether your lines or your neighbors’ lines are lead. EEEEEEK. Find that map right here: https://geo.dcwater.com/Lead/

Happy stalking and freaking out!

 

 

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