…all the engineers and construction workers out there! Without you, we wouldn’t have much comfort in our lives. And I think that we often take you for granted.
I don’t really understand what’s going on in the above picture, but maybe they’re changing old pipes for new ones?
The toxic material/element lead (Pb). A lot of old water mains and service lines were made out of lead or had lead in them which leaches into the drinking water.
Was it mere ignorance that made us use lead back then, or did we know that it is toxic and used it anyway to save costs?
I’d have to look, but I’m going with ignorance of its toxicity like with other things such as radium being used frivolously .
We painted our kids’ rooms with it, painted pencils yellow with it, used it for water lines, put it in gasoline where we then breathed the leaded fumes for decades, and more.
As for finally getting around to replacing lead water lines, well, infrastructure isn’t sexy and no one wants to pay for it.