Already added to my CLA presentation for next month.
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cla2026.eventscribe.net
CLA 2026 Annual Conference
big scary rocks save lives
@jtd.bsky.social
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library craftsperson, very Mid Park, San Diego; Jeffrey T Davis
![In 1986, Harold Washington, Chicago's first black mayor, tried to buck the union. He proposed taking the lead requirement out of the code, after hearing from the health department that 1,644 children in the city were suffering from high levels of lead in their blood.
By then every other major city in the nation had banned lead pipes and Ballanco's engineering organization was urging Chicago to adopt a model city code that excluded lead as well.
But the plumbers' union stood its ground and opposed the measure, and thus it failed to win approval from the city's aldermen.
"Lead [pipes] have proven over a long time to do the job they were designed to do," Jim McCarthy, the union's business manager, told the Chicago Tribune at the time. "I'm hard-pressed to understand why people are talking about lead poisoning. We've had lead pipe in the water system here for 100 years."](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:4wzhwxvcetedwpgdhbfgaa4v/bafkreifhvgb7jivcar2zhpyft45i7irnm4dhddgg42jxsodvgcb6poo2rq)
