*DEBUNKED* Toxic Levels of Lead in Black Rubber Feed Bowl Water, 30 mg/L, 2000 Times EPA Limits

[Life of Eric]

I was alerted about this from another YouTube video where he mentioned a family with back yard chickens who were tested with high amounts of lead in their blood. The culprit was lead leaching from those black rubber feed bowls, then being passed thru the eggs into the family.
I tested one of my bowls which was empty in my coop until it rained today and it caught about an inch of water.
The video is linked here.
I used standard well water test strips and got a reading of 30 mg/L. Per the EPA the Alert Level is 0.015 mg/L.
My results were 2000 Times the EPA Limit.
I encourage you to do your own testing and report the results. I would also encourage you not to use these bowls for watering any of your animals.
Please share this info, and I can't believe these items are being sold almost everywhere.

 

[aart]

The guy, me, did mention this water ran off a metal chicken coop roof, which has green enamel on it and is about 4 years old.
Please test your bowls, that's all I'm asking, because I don't want you or your family to ingest any lead that might be passed on to you thru chicken eggs or milk from animals using these bowls.

Needs to be tested again with rain not coming off of any roof, just straight from the sky. ...and maybe same rainfall caught in a glass and/or other materials too. One test does not quantify.

 

[Life of Eric]

TESTING UPDATE:
Firstly, I want to thank you all for the suggestions on retesting the water.
I have started that process and wanted to give you some update.
A full video will be on my youtube channel probably sometime tomorrow.

Before testing I vigorously rinsed out the water bowl with a garden hose.
I did not scrub it with anything, only used water pressure to clean it.

I then drew water out of my well water storage tank into a clean mason jar and into the Rubber feed bowl. This was at 1:30pm.

I tested both using the same open pack of strips I used on the original test.
Both showed lead present. I tested the tap water in the house, which is on Public Water, and that also showed lead.

At this point I opened a fresh pack of test strips and tested again. The tap water came back at 0.
I went back outside and tested the Mason jar and Rubber feed bowl, and they also came back as 0 lead present.

The water test strips come in foil sealed packs of 20. I opened the first pack in January and even tho they were sealed in the outer container, the open package of strips apparently were no longer good and did give false information.

Even tho the results from my initial video and testing were just proven invalid, I continued to test.
After about 90 minutes, I began to see 'non-zero' results in the Rubber feed bucket.

My latest results, taken 2.5 hours after adding water to the bucket showed 15mg/L.
The water in the mason jar is being tested at the same time, and it still shows 0.

Due to pending rain, I've moved everything into the garage so I can continue to test every couple of hours.

I am documenting this all on video, and will post the full retest video after the water has sat in the Rubber feed bowl for about 24 hours.

my Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/@TwoAcreHomestead/

 

[Life of Eric]

The youtube video is not really passing the smell test for me. There is no EPA "alert" level for lead in water so you can't get 2000x the "EPA limit". Lead levels in water is usually measured in parts per million/billion vs. mg/L so that smells fishy too. I think the guy mentioned that the water came off a metal shed roof? Seems like click bait to me... Although I'm now curious to test the water in the rubber bowls we use.

This video is my own and I posted it to warn people, not get clicks.
I misspoke, the EPA Action Level, not Alert Level, is 15 parts per billion for lead, this can be verified with some googling. This is the equivalent of 0.015mg/L
30mg/L which is the result from my unscientific testing is 2000 times that amount.
The guy, me, did mention this water ran off a metal chicken coop roof, which has green enamel on it and is about 4 years old.
Please test your bowls, that's all I'm asking, because I don't want you or your family to ingest any lead that might be passed on to you thru chicken eggs or milk from animals using these bowls.

 

[aart]

but I can no longer stand by my previous statements confirming there is or was any lead content in the bowl that I was testing.

You should edit your first post in big text to reflect this,
saying also to read the whole thread before panicking.

 

[Al Gerhart]

Lead is used in a lot of PVC products as a stabilizer including garden hoses and those spiffy 4" PVC tube chicken feeders or the ports used in the bucket feeders. Without a stabilizer PVC, rubbers, and a lot of other polymers just decomposes quickly. There are relatively new PVC stabilizers that are lead free but they are more expensive so lead or more accurately one of the lead oxides are used.

I like to remind people that those sci fi stories about a planet with a highly corrosive atmosphere? That is the Earth. Rubber rots due to oxidization quickly once it is made without lead stabilizers. PVC pipes and fittings wouldn't last long without lead stabilizers.

And most plastics are a witches brew of chemicals as both anti oxidants or UV stability, even some metals like aluminum and copper degrade some polymers along with acids, ozone, and even heat like that generated by sunlight.

Lead is also used to make colors in polymers and plastics more vibrant and long lasting. I knew a man that fought a never ending battle with his company's quartz countertop material suppliers to keep them from slipping in lead so as to save on pigment use.

 

[NatJ]

I got a 100 pack of test strips from Amazon when I was setting up my well about 4 months ago. The brand was Lawnful and the kit was about $25
I don't know if they are 100% accurate, but they read 0 on my well water, and 30 mg/L on the water out of the bowl.
Anything other than 0 is a concern.
I'd encourage you to run your own tests.

You can be a lot more sure where the lead is coming from if you do two more tests:
--water from the well (collected in some container that should be lead free)
--water from the well, after it sits in the black rubber bowl (using the very same water you just tested, poured into the black rubber bowl and allowed to sit for a few hours)

That should settle all questions of whether the lead got into the water by any other means (like running across the roof, or if lead could somehow be in the air and the rainwater picked it up that way.)

 

[Life of Eric]

You should edit your first post in big text to reflect this,
saying also to read the whole thread before panicking.

It won't let me edit the title, but I will put something on the first post.
Just tried to edit the first post, won't let me do that either.
I will report my own post so that the title can be edited.
FYI: I would still encourage people to test their own watering system, using a better product than what I purchased off of Amazon.
--
The video title has been edited to point people to comment #47 where I issued my correction.
I have also self reported my post.

 

[Life of Eric]

Just want to share images of what I was seeing:
My 4pm Test showing 15mcg/L:

My 6pm Test results which caused me to retract my previous statements and mark this thread as Debunked:

Sorry if I caused any unneeded panic, and I'm still not sure if these bowls are safe or not.
I'd rather error on the side of caution, and was attempting to act in the best interest of the community.

 

[Folly's place]

I too was concerned about your initial test with the rubber bowl, and I'm glad that more testing is clarifying the situation.
Recently I decided to send eggs from my birds to a testing lab to check for lead. Happily, the test came back 'less than 0.00025ppm'.
Terrific! And we do use rubber water bowls in addition to galvanized drinkers, and have for decades. Our farm buildings were never painted, so no obvious lead paint issues, a very big help.
Living in a place with older lead painted buildings, a different story.
Mary