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 is great. 10 years seems long, but it is a huge project. Glad it will be started soon.
Edit: Aw shit. This is only a proposal. At least we are talking about it.
Huh, my reaction is how would you even find them all so quickly
There’s likely records of most currently used infrastructure. At least enough that the amount you have to go spelunking for would be negligible.
These are service lines, as in assuming all the mains are already lead-free, these are the feeds onto each house. Many of them owned by the homeowner, not the utility. An estimated 9 million of which are lead.
When’s the last time leaded pipes were allowed? Surely at least half a century ago. I find it hard to believe there are good records that old, for every house, many of which lines are not even owned by the utility.
I’m picturing something much more exhaustive, like:
I have no way of knowing what records the water utility has but my house is almost 80 years old and the town’s property records are awfully spotty. And I’m in one of the newer houses in my town - my search included some back to 1890
Edit: 1986. Leaded pipes were allowed that recently, wtf. ( and Florida is number one in leaded pipes remaining: that explains a lot)
I think they were banned that year but basically nobody installed them after the late 70s.
But yeah some places are dabbling with machine learning or algorithmic data set collection. Most are just using what historic records they have and doing shovel tests for the rest.
And within the home, there’s a lot of local, federally-funded programs where your water department will come out and test to see if you have lead pipes, and either help or completely cover the replacement costs.
I assume you can test the water at the outlet for lead.
Most of the time these pipes are not actually leeching lead into the water supply. Most of the time. The whole problem is kind of that it happens just often enough, and just locally enough that monitoring doesn’t catch it immediately.
The water authority where I live makes a point of saying they keep the water on the alkaline side to prevent leaching lead from pipes and solder. Presumably that costs money
They must know where at least some of them are so I guess they can start with those and work outwards on the connection. After all I lead the pipe is likely connected to another lead pipe.
Then I guess it’s just a matter of doing a lot of water monitoring for the remaining pipes.
Nope, you have to use historic records or dig holes in the ground. Lead Service Line Inventory projects can take a while, and many cities are already going as fast as they can.
30+ years after we found out they were bad for us “guys, we should talk about replacing those pipes…”
Good. Drinking water is easy more important than many people realize. I hope we are always updating our pipes to the current standards.
Lots of other pipes have been replaced, it’s just a few hours that are left. Detroit, Pittsburgh and other older cities.
It’s a bit more than just a proposal.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/11/30/fact-sheet-biden-harris-administration-announces-new-action-to-protect-communities-from-lead-exposure/#:~:text=Today%2C as part of President,secure safe drinking water for