Opinion/Editorial
239,000
We, of this generation, cannot save this generation. The effects of lead poisoning, the poisoning having been done with the full knowledge of those who did it, have been eaten into the brains of many Americans who’ve been drinking lead pipe-delivered water for a hundred years. The first and major symptom of consuming lead is a lessening of intellectual capability. Should we have known better than to do this to an entire population? We did know better but sometimes this form of a republic, where the people elect representatives to actually represent them, falls prey to predatory actions taken for profit by those same men and women.
The lead mining cartel of the early 1900s got together and lobbied the governments of this country across the land, large and small. Lead pipes were actually installed in most places because of laws requiring that element’s damning installation be the only one. And here we are, with literally millions of miles of this element still piping poisoned water into homes all over the place. We can’t save this generation, but we can save the next, and that’s what the infrastructure/rebuild America bill is all about.
There are, supposedly, 239,000 service lines of city, town, county, and state pipes supplying drinking water to the public in Wisconsin. How the authorities know this is anybody’s guess because it’s not likely that these same authorities have written records about pipe material content from a hundred years ago, or a little more. That 239,000 does not include the pipes that run from city lines up into homes. Those are private lead pipes and, although the new bill appropriating many billions of dollars, does not cover the cost of replacing lead pipes leading from municipal pipes on into homes. Only homes built after 1986 are unlikely to have lead pipes as a part of their foundational water delivery system (those can and likely are connected to a city or town pipe that is still made of lead, however). The post-1986 building codes are quite effective for those who have private wells, of course, but that is a small part of most local or rural populations.
According to Tom Earle, of the Lake Geneva City Public Works Department, the city has over a thousand lead pipes and he’s eager to start the project of replacing them. What is the city going to do about the pipes running into homes on homeowners’ property where they either don’t want to change the pipes out (maybe they have renters in the property) or can’t afford to?
The Weschler I.Q. Test was invented to be used in place of the old standby Binet test most older people are familiar with. 100 was the average I.Q. on the Binet and that is the same as in on the Weschler. What’s happened, as several studies have concluded that the I.Q. of the nation has slowly been in decline for a long time?
The Weschler test takes into account things other than one’s capability to use the language and prior experience to influence the results of the test. Other things are to be measured, and therefore the standard average I.Q. of the nation appears to be holding its ground. But is that really true with what we see going on around us? Anti-vaxxers? After the huge numbers have come in on the vaccines, the results of which are not only the results of the largest measurable medical test of all time but also with the results that indicate just how wildly successful it is. But never mind, the anti-vaxxers not only stick to not being vaccinated but they are dying while doing so. And what about what is slowly happening in politics and the news? Lying has become a way of supposedly telling the truth, and such transmissions are being accepted as being okay.
What has happened to the culture that cannot be easily explained by measuring the results of what happens to subjects exposed to low-level lead poisoning over a long period of time? We cannot help the current generation. That damage, that poisoning is not reversible. But we can remain intelligent enough to save our children’s children and beyond if we will act. The pipes must become a dead certain and emotionally driven mission to change. We now know. The public didn’t really know before, although the evidence on lead’s negative effects goes all the way back to Roman times. It must become very rapidly as unacceptable to have lead in our drinking water as it is to light up a cigarette on an airplane, a bus, or in a restaurant. The culture has not outlawed smoking, because the culture wants to allow for personal freedoms, even if those freedoms involve suffering and dying. But the culture does not allow kids to smoke, and it should not allow kids to drink poisoned water either.
