The Biden administration has announced a proposal to “strengthen its Lead and Copper Rule that would require water systems to replace lead service lines within 10 years,” the White House said in a statement on Thursday.
According to the White House, more than 9.2 million American households connect to water through lead pipes and lead service lines and, due to “decades of inequitable infrastructure development and underinvestment,” many Americans are at risk of lead exposure.
“There is no safe level of exposure to lead, particularly for children, and eliminating lead exposure from the air, water, and homes is a crucial component of the Biden-Harris Administration’s historic commitment to advancing environmental justice,” the Biden administration said.
Projects are already underway and have replaced our two lagest lead service lines in the medium-small Illinois city where I live via federal funding over the last year. City literally just applied for the funds from this same program and hired private contractors once the funds were approved. About 3 months of construction on each of the 2 roads under which our main service lines run, and now lead has been fully removed from 60% of residents water supply, with the last 40% to occur over the next 18 months.
It’s been pretty simple.
The only hard part is cost - there are thousands of cities in the US that need to do something. The work is straight forward and easy for a crew to do. However it takes a lot of money to pay that crew (and the materials they use)
Which is exactly why federal funds are necessary for it rather than local. The places that need this most tend to be those with the least money for local infrastructure, but if the money doesn’t have to come from the cash-strapped local budget, that’s not an issue.