Batters Up

(Page 3 of 3)

November/December 1988
By the Mother Earth News editors 
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Drinking water accounts for about 20% of the typical U.S. resident's exposure to lead, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Most of the lead in water comes from pipes—municipal water mains and in-house plumbing-as well as from the solder and the brass fittings used to connect pipes. Because lead leaching increases with water temperature, health officials have long advised householders never to draw drinking water from hot water taps. Now William E. Sharpe, a water resources specialist at Penn State, has noted that outside, seasonal temperatures affect lead levels in water. In one of the homes he studied, Sharpe recorded more than a fourfold increase in lead levels from early spring, when water was about 42°F and contained 10 micrograms of lead per liter, to July, when the temperature of the liquid was about 71 °F and the water contained up to 42 micrograms of lead. There may be good reason, therefore, to be particularly concerned about water-supply contamination in the summer, when both lead levels and drinking water consumption are at their highest.

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