“Lead is the number-one environmental health threat to our children.” So says the Environmental Protection Agency of the United States. Those of us who have been around for a while remember the lead paint scare. After lead paint was outlawed, it took a while to remove or paint over the toxic covering. But that didn’t by any means end the ways lead can get into our bodies.

Lead is one of the three most serious heavy metal contaminations we face. The other two are cadmium, and mercury. Of a lesser hazard are aluminum and beryllium. These heavy metals have no known biological function but can be detrimental to health, especially causing long range health issues. Lead can be ingested through car exhaust, cigarette smoke, some colored inks, cosmetics, glass production, hair dyes, lead-glazed earthenware, pottery, metal polish, and a host of other ways.

How does lead get in our drinking water? If you have an old house, chances are you are still feeding your faucets through lead pipes. Copper has been around for a long time but even if the house piping was replaced, the feed line from the street may still be old piping. If you have a well, the casing, feed lines, or storage tank may contain lead. If you are on city water, it probably has a level of lead anyway. I checked the test result of my city water and was not surprised to see the lead level was within acceptable limits. The water contained 2.5 parts per billion but could have as much as 12 ppb and still pass. However, the last check was two years before this report.

An examination of 65 of the 3,000 largest utilities found that cities such as Philadelphia, Boston, New York City, Providence, R.I., and Portland, Maine, are “manipulating the results of tests used to detect lead in water, violating federal law and putting millions of Americans at risk,” The Washington Post reported. More than 250 major cities currently exceed the EPA’s lead standards, and many of them have been deceptive, or even fraudulent, in their reporting of the problems.

Though lead has no known advantage to the body, it does cause known problems.  “Each year in the U.S., lead in drinking water contributes to 480,000 cases of learning disorders in children and 560,000 cases of hypertension in adult males.” We cannot totally rid ourselves of ingesting lead, but we can minimize the problem as much as possible.

The list of negative effects of lead in the system is long. Here is an edited version: abdominal pain, adrenal insufficiency, allergies, anemia, anorexia, anxiety, arthritis (rheumatoid and osteo), attention deficit disorder, autism, back pain, behavioral disorders, blindness, cardiovascular disease, cartilage destruction, coordination loss, concentration loss, constipation, convulsions, and deafness.

The list continues. In summary, the leading areas of concern are kidney problems and nervous system damage. As you can see, these are not the only problems lead causes, but they are certainly a legitimate concern.

The next question is, what do we do about it? How can we protect our children from any possibility of the crippling effects of lead poisoning? First, check your house for lead paint and your water system for lead pipes. Second, filter your drinking and cooking water. A good activated carbon filter like the Black Berkey or their shower filter will remove 95% of the lead present in the water. That is a giant first step in providing safe water for yourself and your family.