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"We don't want any of your leftist 'woke' pipes!"

I can already hear my boomer father bitching

Came here to say this. I look forward to whatever their excuse is to not solve the toxic drinking water problem. And likely immediately spend more on DoD or cut taxes to the rich.

Lead makes Republicans

It's funny, because the hexbears basically have the same "Biden bad" reaction. Almost like there's a weird amount of ideological overlap.

This is a greater threat to the republicans than gerrymandering is to the democrats!

Those that caused the switchover to Flint River water that resulted in the disaster surfacing definitely should be drawn and quartered, no question. Snyder and his city managers put all this nonsense in motion and should be charged with crimes against humanity.

However, it's also a systemic, deeper problem in the US. Flint's pipes didn't suddenly become terrible overnight. The entire water system was in disrepair for decades. The only reason it didn't surface sooner was they were regulating the water going through it to hold the demons at bay. Even when it was working, pre-disaster, the water was safe to drink, but horrible from a drinking water perspective.

The whole system was a giant leaking piece of junk that basically kept working due to positive pressure pushing contaminants out of the leaks, and the pH level being maintained so the old pipes wouldn't start leeching into the water. That a GM engine plant had to switch water sources because the water was damaging the engine construction is just mind-blowing. Human bodies are vastly more delicate than engines.

Flint's not the only one either, many American cities with aging water infrastructure that wasn't properly maintained all have/had similar problems.

We are such a short-sighted country that seems to so quickly forget that our infrastructure requires constant maintenance and updates. I really think the generation that got to live among all the New Deal and post WWII infrastructure just thought they lived in a magic time where all this stuff just exists forever, rather than realizing it takes stewardship to keep things "the way they are". Now, we on the back end, reap the rewards of everything falling apart at the same time, faster than we can fix it.

"Both sides are the same"

Europe has lead pipes as well, buddy.

They're perfectly safe as long as idiots don't change the water supply to one that's more acidic without buffering the pH.

Hell, England and Wales have nearly 3x more than the entire US.

We currently have the freedom to drink lead tainted water, can you say the same?

You don't even have pipes in Europe. You drink water that you squeeze out of your sheep's wool

It’s worth noting that 9.2 million homes is an extremely small percentage of American homes and I’d say almost all of them are extremely rural homes or dying rural towns that just need relocated. Think of North Dakota as akin to the Siberian oblasts or northern Finland, neither get a lot of infrastructure care because no almost one is there. This is the Biden admin trying to look out for the little guy that’s been ignored the last century

To be completely fair, a layer builds up in the pipe which stops the lead being an issue unless you royally fuck up like Flint. That said, it still should've been fixed

It's such a staggering amount of work and money that I think is hard for most people to comprehend. Though, if dispersed properly, will benefit local workers as they usually require they get paid prevailing wage. Which can be pretty fucking high depending on where you live.

And even once all of the lead service lines are replaced, that's just from main to the meter at most. All of the internal fixtures are the owner's responsibility, and you better believe tons of old houses are still full of lead pipes.

This is something that is going to take decades, and you're absolutely right that we should have started decades ago.

That seems implausible. Lead pipes are common pretty much everywhere and it's usually not a problem due to a coating on the pipes.

It's just an issue in the US because there's been a few notable examples of that coating being damaged and causing contamination, which creates political will to do the replacements that everyone is doing at an accelerated pace.

Most places, in the US or not, just replace them during routine maintenance. The UK and Germany should have theirs replaced by 2100, if nothing comes up to make them accelerate the process.

It's actually pretty common around the world. Most places stopped putting in new ones but haven't gone back and phased out the old ones.
The UK and Germany for example didn't discontinue the practice until the 70s.

Usually there's a coating in the pipes that prevents contamination, allowing utilities to replace the pipes with more modern replacements as they do routine maintenance. There's a big focus on doing that maintenance ahead of schedule in the US after a series of very public incidents where that coating was damaged and lead got in the water causing serious issues.

America used lead water pipes

Lead pipes can last 100+ years

America is ~250 years old.

Lead pipes installed in early 1900s would still be functional today.

And it will be described as a Good Thing™

Trump saved us from losing our heritage! We grew off of lead pipes and those damn liberals were going to strip us of that!! Lol I hate that this is an actual possibility.