Best Practice Guide on the Control of Lead in Drinking Water

The main source of lead in drinking water is from lead service pipes and the lead pipes inside dwellings and in the older districts of some Cities and Towns, up to 90% houses may have a lead pipe. Problems can also be caused by lead leaching from brass and from lead-containing solder. Lead is toxic to humans and lead poisoning is exhibited by a wide range of clinical conditions. The regulatory approaches in Europe and North America have been beset by problems due to difficulties associated with sampling for lead in drinking water. In Europe, there are proposals to normalise compliance monitoring by the use of random daytime sampling and a trend is emerging that will include risk assessment and risk management in the regulation of lead in drinking water. In consequence, water suppliers will in future need to look more deeply into the causes and extent of plumbosolvency problems in their area. Virtually all drinking water is sufficiently plumbosolvent to cause exceedence of modern day standards for lead in drinking water, unless corrosion inhibitors are dosed and/or optimised pH adjustment is implemented.. As an early estimate, about 25% of houses in Europe are possibly supplied by a lead pipe. On the basis of two major European studies, two-thirds of the houses supplied by a lead pipe will likely fail the WHO Guideline Value of 10 µg/l for lead in drinking water.

HAYES Colin;  AERTGEERTS Roger;  BARROTT Lisa;  BECKER Angelika;  BENOLIEL M.;  CROLL Brian;  EDWARDS Marc;  GARI Daniel;  HOEKSTRA Eddo;  JUNG Martin;  POSTAWA Adam;  RUEBEL Achim;  RUSSELL Larry;  SCHOCK Michael;  SKUBALA Nina;  WITCZAK Stanislaw;  TIELEMANS Marcel;  ZABOCHNICKA-SWIATEK Magdalena; 

2010-06-28

International Water Association Publishing

JRC57829

9781843393696,   

http://www.iwapublishing.com/template.cfm?name=isbn9781843393696,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC57829,