Hillary's visit to Flint should bring something into perspective.

[MineralMan]

Lead plumbing is, and has been, a problem in our urban areas for a very, very long time. Many homes built prior to WWII and most homes built before 1930 have lead service lines leading into their homes. As long as the water sent through them is of very high quality, they don't leach a lot of lead into the water in the home.

Every last one of those service lines and interior plumbing in older homes should have been replaced long ago. People who can afford to do so have done exactly that. However, in many neighborhoods in many of our cities, those pipes are still in place, long after their dangers have been known, along with the need to replace them.

This is not a problem that exists just in Flint. It exists in almost ever major city. In the affluent neighborhoods, property owners have replaced lead plumbing. Where residents cannot afford to do that, they still exist. Lead plumbing affects the disadvantaged far more than the rest of the population.

All politicians need to speak out against this travesty and invest their energy in correcting the problem everywhere it exists. Flint is just a symptom of a deadly disease that infests most of our major cities.

[hoosierlib]

1. Agreed...

I hope this incident and the mutiple others across the country would prompt our politicians to make the replacement of lead pipes part of our nation's infrastrucutre plan.

[MineralMan]

2. We can only hope. Republicans aren't interested, though.

They don't care about people in areas where such lead pipes still exist. Not one bit. Hillary cares. It shows.

[MADem]

3. Yes indeed. And there are stopgap methodologies that can be used that do not entail taking out the

pipe. This can be done quicker than we're doing. They've been doing it abroad for quite a while;

[MineralMan]

4. That's true. It's a workable alternative.

We had the sewer lines in our neighborhood relined in a similar process last year. Helluva lot of work, but cheaper than digging up the streets. They also replaced all of our natural gas service lines at the same time. It's a city-wide project that will take several years to complete. We'll be paying for it through property taxes and increases in the cost of natural gas.