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April 7, 2021

To Remove Lead Water Pipes, First You Must Find Them

And then you have to make sure you're removing the whole pipe,
including the part on private property

 

How many houses are there like this? We don't really know!
(wonder_al/Flickr/Creative Commons)

The Chief

**** Safe drinking water for everyone in America is an important
goal, and Joe Biden's American Jobs Plan makes a $111 billion
investment toward that. While the majority of the funding goes to
modernizing water treatment and delivery systems and remediating
potentially harmful chemicals like PFAS, what's gotten the most
attention is a $45 billion initiative to "replace 100 percent of the
nation's lead pipes and service lines."

If we could manage to do this, it would make a huge difference. Lead
exposure has been credibly linked to stunted child development, kidney
disease, auditory problems, brain damage, behavioral challenges, and
more provocatively, crime
.
We eliminated leaded gasoline and paint in the 1970s and yet it still
lingers as a persistent problem. And part of that comes through water
tainted as it flows through lead pipes.

But if you want to replace all the lead water pipes in America, the
first thing you have to do is find all the lead water pipes in America.

This is surprisingly not easy to do. You hear a lot about water
infrastructure to homes and buildings that's as much as 100 years old,
but on a related note, there was not a lot of good recordkeeping dating
all the way back. "There are 50,000 water systems across the
country," said Mary Grant of Food and Water Watch. "A lot are
tiny." We don't have a good handle on the extent of lead pipe
service lines, and it will require extensive surveying.

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**** The thirty-year-old EPA Lead and Copper Rule
that sets a maximum
level of lead in water (15 parts per billion, currently) was just
updated to require all water systems to "identify and make public the
locations of lead service lines," but they have until 2024 to complete
it. And once the rule gets finalized later this year, testing for lead
will be done at day cares and schools for the first time (the EPA just
asked for an extension
.)

The American Water Works Association in 2016 estimated 6.1 million lead
service lines
to
homes, and a $30 billion price tag

for full replacement. Added to the surveying to find all the lead pipes,
that eats up most of the $45 billion the White House reserved for this
initiative. But if we've just started testing in schools, it goes
without saying that we have no idea of the extent of lead in that water.
There have been findings of lead in water in schools in Baltimore,
Maryland
,
Portland, Oregon
,
and elsewhere. A Harvard study

from 2018 analyzed 12 states that mandate water testing in schools for
lead, and found 44 percent with at least one elevated sample.

This leaves Grant believing that the administration needs to devote much
more money to lead pipe removal on a lasting basis, if it wants to cover
all homes and schools and child care centers. The WATER Act, which Food
and Water Watch supports, creates a $35 billion annual trust fund,
though that also includes money for treatment systems and other matters.

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Meanwhile, finding the pipes doesn't end the challenge. Lead pipe
service lines go from the water main into residences through a water
meter. At least part of that service line, by definition, crosses onto
the property of an individual homeowner or landlord. In some states, you
can't replace that part of the pipe without the consent of the
property owner. And normally, the homeowner must pay to have the lead
pipes replaced on its side of the property line. The District of
Columbia puts that cost at $2,000-$3,000
,
a difficult expense for many.

"We need full lead service line replacement," Grant told me. "If
you just do the utility part, it would make the crisis worse."
That's because partial service line replacement

can cause something called galvanic corrosion where the new, usually
copper pipe meets the old lead pipe at the lot line. This can eat away
at the old pipe and increase lead levels in water. The CDC has warned
that partial replacement
can "be linked to increased incidences of high blood levels in
children." And beyond service lines, internal home plumbing and
fixtures, particularly in older homes, can use lead as well.

Grant counsels that the language in the bill must make clear that the
federal investment, which would be done through the EPA's Drinking
Water State Revolving Fund (SRF) and Water Infrastructure Improvements
for the Nation (WIIN) grants, is for full lead service line replacement
only. And the funds should relieve property owners from having to pay
for their share of that replacement.

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This brings up another problem. Right now the property owner must be
willing to have the service lines replaced. The SRF does not allow for
eminent domain to force the improvements. You can imagine a landlord
that doesn't want to bear ancillary costs, like putting residents up
in a hotel for a week while the pipes get replaced, rejecting the work.
"It needs to be super-clear that this is a matter of public health,"
Grant said.

Finally, if as the CDC says there is no safe level of exposure to lead,
especially in children, lead in water should not be the only priority.
There's a credible argument

that remediation of lead in soil is a bigger problem than water, though
of course the point here is that all of it needs to be eradicated. In
older schools with parking lots, lead has sat in the soil from idling
exhausts for 50 years or more. Soil remediation could cost as much as
$100 billion
by
one estimate, so you can see why the administration opted to pick and
choose. But the benefits to child health and welfare would be
unbelievably large, and since you can't remove half the lead and get
the benefits, if you're going to make progress here you have to be
comprehensive.

What is good is that the Biden team put lead abatement, a critical
environmental justice priority, on the radar, even if it only looked at
one piece of the problem. "Too often water is forgotten when talking
about lead," Grant said. "It's almost forgotten infrastructure,
out of sight, out of mind."

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What Day of Biden's Presidency Is It?

Day 78.

We Can't Do This Without You

Today I Learned

* Two reconciliation bills per fiscal year would give Democrats six
shots in total

with its current majority to advance party-line bills. (CNN)

* Already the strategizing on reconciliation bills has begun, starting
with comprehensive immigration reform
.
(Roll Call)

* The voting rights bill HR1 is an unlikely choice for reconciliation,
but there are bigger problems
,
as its language is really a placeholder in parts and it doesn't really
even have majority support. (Vox)

* Janet Yellen's diplomatic effort on global tax havens

is another example of monumental policy without needing Congress. (The
Week)

* The biggest problem we have in America is surely the lack of idle
White House gossip
.
(Washington Post)

* About half of all new coronavirus cases are in four states
,
and the Biden administration should absolutely be speeding vaccines
their way. (Associated Press)

* Most educators have been vaccinated, about 4 in 5
.
(CBS News)

* Not even preliminary moves toward Mideast peace

yet. (Politico)

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