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, finalising 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 on 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 prioritised 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 on 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 behavioural 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 tell 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.