As brought to light by Michael Hawthorne of the Chicago Tribune, Chicago is currently trying to resume a program that would help in conserving the water drawn from Lake Michigan, as the last attempt resulted in lead levels spiking around the areas in which meters were installed. You can find out all the details in this well written article posted on the 27th of February. Below are the important outtakes.

“Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration is enlisting Chicagoans to help determine if a new type of meter can be installed without causing high concentrations of brain-damaging lead to flow out of household faucets.” The reason for this is that the Water Department officials believe that the type of meter used in the past, for several years, may have been triggering the issue of high levels of lead leaching into the residents’ water.

“Chicago has the most lead service lines in the United States, largely because the city’s plumbing code required the use of lead to connect single-family homes and two-flats to street mains until Congress banned the practice in 1986.”

- “We noticed there were no changes to the water when we used the other type of meter in some homes,” said Andrea Putz, a deputy commissioner. However, “a recently retired expert from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said the real problem is - city officials still fail to recognize that any disruption of lead pipes can substantially increase concentrations of the toxic metal in tap water.”

”Of 510 homes tested between 2017 and 2019, 22% had elevated lead levels in tap water after a meter installation, the city found. About 7% saw lead levels spike higher than 15 parts per billion”. This is the level set forth by the EPA as the lead in water level at which point actions must be taken to drastically decrease the concentration. In many districts across the country, the standard for lead ppb in water is set as low as 5ppb, only one third of the EPA actionable levels. This is due to the accumulative nature of the harmful toxin in the human body, and the risks that follow as a result of being exposed to the metal.

“If they have come up with some goofy excuse, taking care not to manhandle lead pipes from now on, that may allow them to say ‘See, we aren’t seeing high lead since we switched to these new meters,’ ” said Miguel del Toral, who led a 2013 EPA study of Chicago homes that revealed how lead levels in tap water could spike for months — or even years — after pipes had been disturbed by street work or plumbing repairs, including the installation of water meters.”
Lead is a metal subject to corrosion, as any other hard materials - certain interactions of chemicals, friction, temperature changes, etc., can all be leading and decisive factors in the corrosive development of the metal in pipes.

Disturbing the pipes without replacing them with the lead-free piping, as we believe should be the norm across the country, can cause corrosive increases for a long time after the actions have taken place.

““Lead service lines are a risk, period,” said del Toral, who played a key role in identifying the health threats to people in Flint, Michigan, and East Chicago. “No further studies are required.””

“Del Toral suggested the city could kick-start its own program by waiving costly permits and requiring the removal of lead service lines when homes are sold.” - “Get them out during water main work and save us all a lot of money since the equipment is already there and we don’t have to dig it up (and repave) the streets twice,” del Toral said. “We all get different benefits in one way or another from public expenditures, and of course this is the right thing to do.”

this is a powerful initiative if it can follow through, as this would eradicate the danger of the lines serving that home for good. If this method was enforced throughout the country, the lead service lines would slowly diminish and would remove the need for a massive infrastructure overhaul all at once. The gradual approach here would leave certain people at risk for a longer period of time, however, methods to diminish the risk can be taken into consideration without looking too far.

Our kits, which you can buy here, are your user friendly and affordable solution to identifying the issue at a professional standard and reliability as we test the samples in a lead-testing certified lab. We have done extensive research on the best options for protecting yourself against any threat of lead if of course you do have any issues with results showing higher than 15ppb in your household source. The best thing to do now is to identify whether or not there is an issue, is this can be done with effective measure and at an affordable rate - then if there is an issue, decisions can be made as to how to approach the solution.

If you have any questions about this please do let us know.