Lead in Drinking Water – How Can Lead Affect Your Health?

February 27, 2012 | Posted by David

Lead in Drinking Water How Can Lead Affect Your Health?

David G Langford asked:

The dangers of lead in drinking water were made real to me by a notice I received from my local community. It read: “Some homes in the Clifton, Passaic, Paterson and Prospect Park service areas have elevated lead levels in their drinking water. Lead can pose a significant risk to your health.”

What Are the Risks of Lead in Drinking Water to Your Health?

The degree of harm lead does to your health depends on how much lead has built up in your body over the years. It also depends on one’s age.

When lead is taken into the digestive system either in water or in food, it is distributed throughout the body by the circulatory system. It builds up mostly in your bones. Some lead remains in your blood. It is because of this fact that the amount of lead measured in your blood can be used to estimate the total amount of lead in your body.

Children between the ages of two and six are particularly vulnerable to lead. Too much lead in a child’s system can cause learning problems. It can cause delay in physical and mental development. It can cause both brain damage and kidney damage.

Adults who drink water with too much lead, over a period of years, can experience an increase of blood pressure and kidney damage. To put things in perspective, however, it is helpful to note that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that the main sources of lead exposure are through ingesting paint chips and inhaling paint dust. They estimate that only 10 to 20% of our exposure to lead comes from lead in drinking water.

What Can You Do About Lead in Drinking Water?

The first things to do is to find out if lead is indeed in your drinking water in an elevated amount. Your water utility is required to send you annually a Consumer Confidence Report to inform you of the state of your water. If the level of lead in your water surpasses the Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) set by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), they are required to make a note on this in the report.

But here’s the complication. Often the level of lead in your tap water becomes elevated through lead plumbing or fixtures or soldering in the plumbing between the water purification facility and your tap. Some of the worst pollution can come through the plumbing in your house, particularly if it was build before 1940. Before 1940 lead pipes were often used in the plumbing of houses.

When water sits for several hours in your pipes, lead can enter the water. This is why it is suggested that you run your water for 15 to 30 seconds to flush out the lead. So what can you do about this potential threat of elevated levels of lead in your tap water? The only way you can know for sure the level of lead in your water is to test your tap water.

Another approach to protecting yourself against high levels of lead in drinking water is to use a drinking water filter that is certified by the NFS International for removing lead. This is certainly the best way of dealing with high levels of lead in your tap water, it’s also a way of giving you peace of mind if you’re not sure.