Biden sets a 10-year deadline for US cities to replace lead pipes and
make drinking water safer
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[October 08, 2024]
By MATTHEW DALY and MICHAEL PHILLIS
WASHINGTON (AP) — A decade after the Flint, Michigan, water crisis
raised alarms about the continuing dangers of lead in tap water,
President Joe Biden is setting a 10-year deadline for cities across the
nation to replace their lead pipes, finalizing an aggressive approach
aimed at ensuring that drinking water is safe for all Americans.
Biden is expected to announce the final Environmental Protection Agency
rule Tuesday in the swing state of Wisconsin during the final month of a
tight presidential campaign. The announcement highlights an issue — safe
drinking water — that Kamala Harris has prioritized as vice president
and during her presidential campaign. The new rule supplants a looser
standard set by former President Donald Trump's administration that did
not include a universal requirement to replace lead pipes.
Biden and Harris believe it’s “a moral imperative” to ensure that
everyone has access to clean drinking water, EPA Administrator Michael
Regan told reporters Monday. “We know that over 9 million legacy lead
pipes continue to deliver water to homes across our country. But the
science has been clear for decades: There is no safe level of lead in
our drinking water.''
The rule is the strongest overhaul of lead-in-water standards in roughly
three decades. Lead, a heavy metal used in pipes, paints, ammunition and
many other products, is a neurotoxin that can cause a range of disorders
from behavioral problems to brain damage. Lead lowers IQ scores in
children, stunts their development and increases blood pressure in
adults.
The EPA estimates the stricter standard will prevent up to 900,000
infants from having low birthweight and avoid up to 1,500 premature
deaths a year from heart disease.
The new regulation is stricter than one proposed last fall and requires
water systems to ensure that lead concentrations do not exceed an
“action level” of 10 parts per billion, down from 15 parts per billion
under the current standard. If high lead levels are found, water systems
must inform the public about ways to protect their health, including the
use of water filters, and take action to reduce lead exposure while
concurrently working to replace all lead pipes.
Lead pipes often impact low-income urban areas the most. They are most
commonly found in older, industrial parts of the country, including
major cities such as Chicago, Cleveland, New York, Detroit and
Milwaukee, where Biden will announce the standards on Tuesday.
The new rule also revises the way lead amounts are measured, which could
significantly expand the number of cities and water systems that are
found to have excessive levels of lead, the EPA said.
To help communities comply, the agency is making available an additional
$2.6 billion for drinking water infrastructure through the bipartisan
infrastructure law. The agency also is awarding $35 million in
competitive grants for programs to reduce lead in drinking water.
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The 10-year timeframe won't start
for three years, giving water utilities time to prepare. A limited
number of cities with large volumes of lead pipes may be given a
longer timeframe to meet the new standard.
Biden will make the announcement in Milwaukee, a city with the
fifth-highest number of lead pipes in the nation, according to the
EPA. Officials there are using money from the federal infrastructure
law to accelerate lead-pipe replacement work and meet a goal to
remove all lead pipes within 10 years, down from an initial 60-year
timeframe.
Lead pipes can corrode and contaminate drinking water; removing them
sharply reduces the chance of a crisis. In Flint, a change in the
source of the city's drinking water source more than a decade ago
made it more corrosive, spiking lead levels in tap water. Flint was
the highest-profile example among numerous cities that have
struggled with stubbornly high levels of lead, including Newark, New
Jersey, Benton Harbor, Michigan, and Washington, D.C.
The original lead and copper rule for drinking water was enacted by
the EPA more than 30 years ago. The rules have significantly reduced
lead in tap water but have included loopholes that allowed cities to
take little action when lead levels rose too high.
“I think there is very broad support for doing this. Nobody wants to
be drinking lead-contaminated tap water or basically sipping their
water out of a lead straw, which is what millions of people are
doing today," said Erik Olson, a health and food expert at the
nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council, speaking generally
about the EPA’s efforts to replace lead pipes ahead of the official
announcement.
Actually getting the lead pipes out of the ground will be an
enormous challenge. The infrastructure law approved in 2021 provided
$15 billion to help cities replace their lead pipes, but the total
cost will be several times higher. The requirement also comes as the
Biden administration proposes strict new drinking water standards
for forever chemicals called PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl
substances. These standards will also improve public health although
at a cost of billions of dollars.
The American Water Works Association, an industry group, said when
the proposed rule was announced that it supports EPA’s goals, but
warned that costs could be prohibitive.
Another hurdle is finding the lead pipes. Many cities do not have
accurate records detailing where they are. Initial pipe inventories
are due this month, and many cities have said they don't know what
substances their pipes are made of.
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Phillis reported from St. Louis.
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