Biden sets a 10-year deadline for US cities to replace lead pipes and make drinking water safer

WASHINGTON — A decade after the Flint, Michigan, water crisis I have raised the alarm about the continuing dangers of lead in tap water, Mr President Joe Biden sets a 10-year deadline for cities across the country to replace their lead pipes, completing an aggressive approach aimed at ensuring drinking water is safe for all Americans.

Biden is expected to announce the Environmental Protection Agency’s final rule in the swing state of Wisconsin in the final month of this year 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 replaces a looser standard set by the former president Donald Trump’s administration that did not provide for a universal obligation to replace lead pipes.

Biden and Harris believe it is “a moral obligation” to ensure everyone has access to clean drinking water, EPA Administrator Michael Regan told reporters on Monday. “We know that more than 9 million old lead pipes continue to supply water to homes across our country. But the science has been clear for decades: there are no safe levels of lead in our drinking water.”

The rule is the strongest overhaul of lead-in-water standards in about three decades. Lead, a heavy metal used in pipes, paint, 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, hinders their development and increases blood pressure in adults.

The EPA estimates that the stricter standard will prevent up to 900,000 infants from having low birth weight and prevent up to 1,500 premature deaths from heart disease each year.

The new regulations are stricter than one proposed last fall and requires water systems to ensure 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 should inform the public about ways to protect their health, including the use of water filters, and take action to reduce lead exposure while working to replace all lead pipes.

Lead pipes often have the greatest impact on low-income urban areas. They are most commonly found in older, industrial parts of the country, including big cities like ChicagoCleveland, New York, Detroit and Milwaukee, where Biden and Regan will announce the standards on Tuesday.

The new rule also revises the way lead amounts are measured could expand significantly the number of cities and water systems found to have excessive amounts of lead, according to the EPA.

To help communities comply, the agency is making an additional $2.6 billion available for drinking water infrastructure the bipartisan infrastructure bill. The agency also awards $35 million in competitive grants for programs to reduce lead levels in drinking water.

The ten-year time frame won’t start for another three years, giving water companies time to prepare. A limited number of cities with large volumes of lead pipes may be given a longer period to comply with the new standard.

Biden will make the announcement in Milwaukee, a city with the fifth-highest number of lead pipes in the country, according to the EPA. Officials there are using money from the federal infrastructure law to accelerate the replacement of lead pipes and meet a goal of removing all lead pipes within 10 years, instead of an initial time frame of 60 years.

Lead pipes can corrode and contaminate drinking water; removing them significantly 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 it made it more corrosive, raising lead levels in tap water. Flint was the best-known example among countless cities struggling with persistently high levels of lead, including Newark, NJBenton Harbor, Michigan and Washington, DC

The original lead and copper rule for drinking water was issued by the EPA more than thirty years ago. Have the rules Lead in tap water has been significantly reduced, but loopholes have been created that have prevented cities from taking much action when lead levels got too high.

“I think there is very broad support for doing this. No one wants to drink lead-contaminated tap water or actually sip their water from a lead straw, which is what millions of people do today,” said Erik Olson, a health and nutrition expert at the nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council. generally about the EPA’s efforts to replace lead pipes prior to the official announcement.

Actually removing the lead pipes from the ground will be an enormous challenge. The infrastructure bill passed in 2021 provided $15 billion to help cities replace their lead pipes, but the total cost will be many 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 this will cost billions of dollars.

The American Water Works Association, an industry group, said when the proposed rule was announced that it supports the EPA’s goals but warned that the costs could be prohibitive.

Another hurdle is finding the lead pipes. Many cities do not have accurate data on where they are located. The first pipe inventories will take place this month, and many cities have said they don’t know what materials their pipes are made of.

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Phillis reported from St. Louis.

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