Cigars boost the risk of early death from coronary heart disease by 30%. Even if you don’t inhale, you can get cancer from smoking pipes and cigars. People who smoke cigars regularly are 4 to 10 times more likely than nonsmokers to die from cancers of the mouth, larynx, and esophagus. Oral cancer can develop anywhere the smoke touches, including the lips, mouth, throat, and tongue.
Congress has shown no appetite for funding replacement projects on a grand scale, and even after Flint, few politicians on the national stage have proposed it. EPA scientists told APM Reports the plan was dangerously thin on science. Water samples would only be taken from people who asked for them, and there would be no requirement to test in homes with lead glass pipes service lines. Utilities also were protected by the rule’s lenient testing requirements. Even in the nation’s largest cities, the EPA requires utilities to only sample a minimum of 50 homes with lead pipes as little as once every three years, unless certain lead levels are exceeded. Then, tests have to be run more frequently, as often as every six months.
“I’d talked to our managers and said, ‘We need data,'” said Del Toral. “If this is going to be it — the final revision , which was the plan — we need to know whether our sampling is actually capturing the lead.” By the time President Richard Nixon created the EPA in 1970, it was clear that even small amounts of lead could be harmful — especially to kids, whose brains water pipes and bodies are still growing. Miguel Del Toral holds a section of lead pipe at his home in Chicago. Now, with the coronavirus pandemic occupying the nation’s attention, the Trump administration is rushing to finalize its revision of the Lead and Copper Rule. The EPA plans to condense a scientific review that would normally take months into just six weeks.
Instead of allowing the EPA’s in-house experts to stay on the job, Grevatt and the Office of Water gave utilities a substantial opening to rewrite the rule. At the very least, Portier argues, the EPA should cut its action level in half, to 7.5 parts per billion. The American Academy of Pediatrics goes further, recommending a cap of 1 part per billion for water that kids drink in schools. The details of these policy proposals have never been reported. But internal documents and interviews with people who worked on the draft show the agency moving toward a stricter rule than what’s on the books now and stricter than what the EPA is rushing to complete in a few months. Del Toral and two other EPA researchers conducted three rounds of testing — in spring, summer and fall — at 32 households in Chicago, sampling up to 20 liters of water at a time.
For example, PVC is more flexible, but ABS is stronger and more shock resistant. ABS is better at handling severely cold temperatures, but it can warp with exposure to direct sunlight. PVC is thought to be better at muffling the sound of running water. In most North American markets, the two types glass pipes are priced similarly. Where significant price differences can be found, it’s usually due to higher shipping costs for one type. Before you put too much thought into deciding between ABS and PVC plastic piping, you should know that your local government may have already made the decision for you.
The only way to detect it — and confirm that treatment works — is by testing water from the tap. For decades, lax EPA rules missed hazardous lead levels and allowed some utilities to remain indifferent. Today the Trump administration is rushing to finalize a plan that might make things worse. Ask your water provider if you have a lead service line providing water to your home. If you have a lead service line, ask if there are any programs to assist with removal of the lead service line going to your home. Understand that any work, such as water main or service line replacement, could increase exposure to lead while the work is ongoing and for up to six months after the work is completed.