The Great Lead Water Pipe Disaster [Paperback]

Werner Troesken has written a fascinating detective story of a little-known environmental disaster. He shows that lead from water pipes killed and sickened millions without anyone realizing the culprit's identity. Underdeveloped scientific knowledge, cost considerations, municipal water-supply boosterism, and liability law led to a complete denial of the evidence. Essential for anyone interested in public health, science, history, or politcs.

A full and valuable discussion of a long-neglected public health problem.

The history of a long-running environmental catastrophe chronicles the harmful effects of lead pipes and their continued use despite evidence that they pose a significant health risk.

In The Great Lead Water Pipe Disaster, Werner Troesken looks at a long-running environmental and public health catastrophe: 150 years of lead pipes in local water systems and the associated sickness, premature death, political inaction, and social denial. The harmful effects of lead water pipes became apparent almost as soon as cities the world over began to install them. Doctors and scientists noted cases of acute illness and death attributable to lead in public water beginning in the middle of the nineteenth century, and an editorial in the New York Herald called for the city to study the matter after a bizarre illness made headlines in 1868. But officials took no action for many years. New York City, for example, did not take any steps to reduce lead levels in water until 1992, long after the most serious damage had been done. By then, in any case, much of the old lead pipe had been replaced with safer materials. Troesken examines the health effects of lead exposure, analyzing cases from New York City, Boston, and Glasgow and many smaller towns in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and England. He draws on period accounts, government reports, court decisions, and economic and ló.