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.
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.