President Joe Biden’s administration on Tuesday finalized a rule mandating the removal of the nation’s remaining lead pipes within a decade, a move aimed at preventing millions of people from being exposed to the toxic metal linked with childhood developmental delays.
The policy is a cornerstone of the White House’s environmental justice agenda, since legacy water pipes are mainly located in lower income and racial minority communities.
Since Biden took office, over 367,000 pipes have been replaced, benefiting nearly a million people, the White House said in a statement ahead of remarks by Biden in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. There are around nine million more homes still served by lead lines.
“We’ve known for decades that lead exposure has serious long-term impacts for children’s health. And yet, millions of lead service lines are still delivering drinking water to homes,” Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan said in a statement.
“With the Lead and Copper Rule Improvements and historic investments in lead pipe replacement, the Biden-Harris Administration is fulfilling its commitment that no community, regardless of race, geography, or wealth, should have to worry about lead-contaminated water in their homes.”
There is no safe level of lead exposure. It evades a key defense of the body known as the blood-brain-barrier, and even trace amounts cause irreversible cognitive damage to children.
In adults lead can cause miscarriage, stillbirth, high blood pressure, decreased kidney function and cancer.
Biden’s administration announced its intention in 2021 to remove remaining lead lines over the coming years. But the plan was initially criticized for actually slowing down the rate of replacement and even allowing small public water systems to avoid replacing them altogether.
The government was subsequently sued by nine states and the District of Columbia, as well as the environmental justice groups Earthjustice and the Natural Resources Defense Council, before strengthening its rule.
Mona Hanna, a pediatrician in Flint, Michigan, which experienced a public health crisis stemming from its lead-contaminated water supply a decade ago, said in a statement the finalized rule was “a game changer for kids and communities.”
“EPA’s finalized lead and copper rule improvements will ensure that we will never again see the preventable tragedy of a city, or a child, poisoned by their lead pipes,” she added.
Funding for the initiative comes from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, passed in 2021, which provides $50 billion to support upgrades to the nation’s drinking water and wastewater infrastructure.
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