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.
This has been often speculated as being the cause of the “Stupid American” stereotype. Good decision
That seems implausible. Lead pipes are common pretty much everywhere and it’s usually not a problem due to a coating on the pipes.
It’s just an issue in the US because there’s been a few notable examples of that coating being damaged and causing contamination, which creates political will to do the replacements that everyone is doing at an accelerated pace.
Most places, in the US or not, just replace them during routine maintenance. The UK and Germany should have theirs replaced by 2100, if nothing comes up to make them accelerate the process.
The US hasn’t been good about replacing pipes in general, there’s even a good amount that aren’t even documented in some areas.
Didn’t they pull out some wooden pipes somewhere in the US within the last couple years? I remember seeing an article about it.
I believe someone found wood pipes still in use, it may have been flint, since they got a complete overhaul of their pipes.
30 years ago Boston was trying to map their pre revolutionary war wood pipes. I would expect flint was built with metal pipes, as that area is mostly known for iron.
Iron was further north, Michigan was a huge lumber state.
hydrofluorosilicic acid is the cause of all the problems with lead pipes. It is being used as a replacement for standard fluoride
We’ll see how dumb Americans are in a generation or two. Hopefully this’ll fix it!
I’ve seen leaded gasoline cited, but not lead pipes.
There was lead in so many products in our parent’s generation, not just the water pipes and gasoline. Cosmetics and paint are also two notable ones that, combined with all the other sources of lead, increased exposure to hazardous levels.
Humans are just stupid, not just Americans.