Profiting from poison: how the US lead industry knowingly created a water crisis

The year was 1933 and, to a group of industrialists gathered in a New York City lunch club, it seemed like the lead industry was doomed.

The association hired two staff members to visit hundreds of city water departments and send out letters to thousands more – pushing the idea of making lead pipes mandatory in city codes. In addition,illustrated promotional materials to a list of 4,357 water departments and water companies in the US to encourage use of lead pipes.

In Chicago, city officials are just beginning to figure out how to deal with the dangers to drinking water: lead pipes feed water to 400,000 homes there and will take at least $8bn to get rid of. In Buffalo, community groups are fighting to stop a lead poisoning epidemic that has taken a toll on several generations of the mostly black children in the city’s most impoverished neighborhoods.

After going to university to become a plumbing engineer, Ballanco moved to Chicago and learned just how entrenched the toxic metal had become in the city. He joined a national engineering organization trying to get lead requirements out of city building codes. In return, Chicago plumbers enthusiastically promoted the industry – as was seen in an article written for“I am happy to say that the lead industry […] has cooperated fully with the plumber to strengthen and improve plumbing ordinances all over the country,”Within a few years, Lead magazine published anThe support for lead lines was cemented in the 1950s, as the plumbers union became particularly powerful in the city, according...

Daley and Bailey could be seen marching arm in arm in Chicago’s St Patrick’s Day Parade, sponsored by the plumbers, who dye the city’s river shamrock green for the famous event every year. “Lead [pipes] have proven over a long time to do the job they were designed to do,” Jim McCarthy, the union’s business manager,at the time. “I’m hard-pressed to understand why people are talking about lead poisoning. We’ve had lead pipe in the water system here for 100 years.”

But, according to Ballanco, until the federal government banned lead pipes in 1986, Chicago continued to install them. The city’s long delay in banning the pipes is why Chicago has more lead pipes than any other city in the nation.

counties and cities do not have the money to rip out the lead pipes The Romans were poisoned by lead pipes 1000 years ago yet 19th century US was pushing for lead pipes

psychology populationhealth publichealth SDoH wellbeingeconomy sustainability Risk factors for callous behaviour can be identified and addressed at early stages of development. Education has focused on equipping mafia types with skills while failing to assess empathy. .

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