Got Lead?

Seattle seems to have joined Tacoma and all the other cities around the country with some amount of lead in their drinking water. The public utility says that IF your home is one of the ones testing positive for lead the lead isn’t from the water, it’s from your old goose-neck pipes used to attach to the city water supply. Wouldn’t you know it, we’ve replaced every piece of pipe in this house except the supply line which is still old galvanized pipe. Perhaps in light of this news someone will offer a rebate to replace supply lines to older houses.

“As a temporary precaution—SPU is asking all Seattle residents to run their water for two minutes before using it if the water has not been run for more than six hours.”

Now we don’t drink unfiltered tap water and I don’t buy bottled water unless I’m on a road-trip or something like that because I don’t like tossing those disposable bottles into the trash or even into the recycling. We use filters for drinking water and ice, both the one built into the fridge and a pitcher type. These remove 99% of lead and also remove pharmaceuticals, microbes and many other pollutants from the water. I usually use tap water for the dog bowls and for boiling pasta and stuff like that just because I keep the filter pitcher in the fridge so it takes longer to boil but I’m officially switching to filtered water for everything.

Running the tap for two minutes if it has been unused for 6 hours seems pretty simple. In the morning, take a shower first instead of brushing your teeth first. That way the shower will use up the two minutes of water just warming up before you get in and you haven’t wasted water by just letting it run without any purpose.

When I was little Chicagoans used to brag about the taste of Chicago water and how fresh it was since it was drawn from waaaay out in the center of Lake Michigan. It didn’t taste like chlorinated pool water and it was mildly effervescent in the glass. If a friend took you out in their boat two things that they insisted you see were the city skyline from the water and the visible edge of the water pumping station two miles from shore. Ya, that is what city-folk do with a boat. This is what the water plant itself looks like these days right at the edge of the Navy Pier Complex.