Pulaski

Flint isn't a soldering problem, it's lead pipes, apparently mostly inside people's homes.

mrken30

Sorry I was mistaken, I had heard it was caused by the acidic water disolving the lead in the solder and that's why it's not easily repaired, because not the solder is unstable. Probably a mixture of both, still very unfortunate.

Nutmegger

I understand that it is because they stopped using the treated water supplied by Detroit and instead began drawing the water directly from the contaminated Flint River.

sir_eccles

Yes, the Flint River water was more corrosive and also lacked the additive (orthophosphate) that prevents lead leeching out of pipes.

Pulaski

It looks like Detroit is primarily responsible, for cutting off water to Flint just to spite Flint City, when Flint was going to be without treated water until 2016. What Detroit did was unconscionable.

zzrmark

Lead pipes are more common in the UK and probably the US than people realise and, just as Flint used to be, are perfectly fine for carrying drinking water. Lead pipes were probably not the safest material to use when they were first installed but they've been in-situ for so long now that a protective coating will have formed on the inside. This coat is basically Calcium Carbonate leached from the water carried in the pipes, I'm assuming the same happens in the US.

The problems occur when the pipes are either mechanically disturbed by trees roots, seismic activity or man, etc (breaking off that 'protective' coat) or, as in the case of Flint, the chemical composition of the water carried changes and dissolves the 'protective' coat - higher acidity makes sense as Calcium Carbonate will dissolve in an acid solution (which doesn't need to be overly 'strong').

Fascinating fact...
Rain water is pure Carbonic acid and perfectly capable of dissolving Calcium Carbonate (think Limestone and caves )

mrken30

This incident made me think about testing my water at home

Pulaski

Pure? Not really, it's very dilute. Wouldn't there have to be an equal number of CO2 molecules as H2O molecules for it to be "pure" H2CO3? ..... You certainly can't dissolve that much CO2 in water, in fact not even close at normal atmospheric pressure.

zzrmark

Point taken, chemically it is almost impossible to be pure. I'd have been better to have said 'rainwater IS Carbonic acid'

lizzyq

Here in State College PA we have the Centre County Recycling Center just to really confuse things

BubbleChog

Smallchog has made off with the book I wrote down my WDW trip details and hidden it somewhere. I knew this free-range parenting lark would back fire

zzrmark

If 'WDW' means what I think it does mebbe it's the little blighter's way of telling you that he/she doesn't really want to go

BubbleChog

She doesn't even know we are going. I think holiday and theme park are concepts alien to her and I'm not sure of the benefits of explaining to a nearly 3 year old.

I did find the book, it was being used as a baking sheet in the play kitchen

zzrmark

My resident step-granddaughter, also a 'nearly 3' is fairly well clued up on the stuff they get on the TV from that source but I think the same concepts would be alien to her - no doubt she'll soon be well aware as it's only an hour and a half's drive from here and certain family members do keep bringing the blasted subject up

Bob

My sister.

Also, running out of cream cheese when you have one more bagel left in the bag.