If you’re current on the news, you know that one of the latest tactics being used to keep us from shooting is saying that lead from downrange bullets contaminates drinking water.
Lead contamination is a potential problem… but the government doesn’t exactly have clean hands on this topic.
Anyone who grew up in the Sixties and Seventies will remember the controversies over lead paint and leaded gasoline that were much in the news at the time. While change eventually occurred for the better, it took decades of pressure on paint manufacturers, and plenty of local legislation, before the United States banned the use of lead additives in household paints nationwide in 1978. This is after knowing the toxic effects of lead for DECADES. We finally thought that this toxic material was finally put to bed.
The latest wave of struggles involves lead contamination in municipal drinking water, accompanied by suspect government agency behavior in the wake of the events. Hard as it may be to believe some 40-50 years after lead paint and leaded gasoline were all over the news, lead contamination is still a problem in many cities, and official responses have sometimes been slipshod.
Lead is found in the infrastructure of older public water delivery systems, as well as home plumbing that pre dates the late 1980s. When the municipal tap water providers do their jobs correctly, the lead stays in the pipes and does not leach into the water, but when they cut corners, the toxic material enters our water.
From roughly 2001-2006, Washington DC’s municipal tap water provider allowed lead contamination to enter the water supply at nearly 100 times the legal level, and covered it up. It took a major series of award-winning articles in the Washington Post and subsequent Congressional hearings to get this issue thoroughly aired and addressed, and as recently as 2010, many homes served by the system were still known to be at risk.
Most recently, the city of Flint, Michigan, has faced its own lead nightmare as a result of a switch in its water sourcing from the City of Detroit to the Flint River (pending a later switch to Lake Huron in 2016). Flint was supposedly advised by the State of Michigan that the Flint River water would be safe, but they were advised poorly. The water is brown, it stinks, it contains unacceptable levels of the very dangerous E. coli pathogen, and it is highly corrosive, which has led to the shedding of lead into the water and an alarming increase in the number of children who are demonstrating elevated lead levels and the symptoms that go with them.
Citizen vigilance and holding politicians accountable are the best ways to make sure that the REAL source of lead contamination isn’t blamed on downrange bullets. Do yourself a favor, contact your local representatives, and take the first step toward protecting your family from this type of incompetence by getting a free, no obligation, water quality analysis for your home.
Source: http://www.hydroviv.com/drinking-water-filters.html