Biden unveils $3 billion for nationwide lead pipe replacement
Biden unveils $3 billion for nationwide lead pipe replacement
President Joe Biden announced Thursday $3 billion toward identifying and replacing the nation’s unsafe lead pipes, a long-sought move to improve public health and clean drinking water that will be paid for by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
President Joe Biden announced Thursday $3 billion toward identifying and replacing the nation’s unsafe lead pipes, a long-sought move to improve public health and clean drinking water that will be paid for by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
Biden unveiled the new funding in North Carolina, a battleground state Democrats have lost to Donald Trump in the past two presidential elections but are feeling more bullish toward due to an abortion measure on the state’s ballot this November.
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The Environmental Protection Agency will invest $3 billion in the lead pipe effort annually through 2026, Administrator Michael Regan told reporters. He said that nearly 50% of the funding will go to disadvantaged communities – and a fact sheet from the Biden administration noted that “lead exposure disproportionately affects communities of color and low-income families.”
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Holy shit, we still have lead pipes in places!? I thought those were replaced in the 80's.
It's worse than you think.
You know those old ill maintained public schools?
The combination of not just old lead pipes, but being shut down for extended periods mean lots of children are getting lead poisoning at school.
https://www.gao.gov/blog/protecting-children-lead-exposure-schools-and-child-care-facilities
So even if your house and local water is fine, your kids might be getting dosed up with lead at a young age, which is when it's most impactful.
Lead is a serious problem that lots of people assume was fixed when we took it out of gas. It helped, but there's still lots of lead around.
It's going to be one of those things future generations look back on and go "no wonder they were so fucking crazy".
Nope, they're actually still pretty common across the industrialized world. It's not just a US thing.
We recognized the potential for harm decades ago, but for the most part it's not a critical issue due to some minutiae of how lead pipes work in practice.
Incidents like Flint made it clear that the consequences of messing up that minutiae are big enough that we really, really shouldn't be relying on them.
So this isn't billions of dollars in emergency response, it's billions of dollars in preventative maintenance, which is even better. 😊
We stopped using lead in the 80s - the existing pipes are mostly still there and working just fine. If you are in a building or city built before 1985 assume there is lead in the plumbing someplace and take action. The more important thing you can do is let drinking water run for a minute before drinking (or install a RO drinking water system that will remove lead - regular filters will not - RO is most common of that that will).
With a little care (much of it chemistry - meaning your water department - not much lead will leach from your pipes and you are okay. Okay should not be confused with good, 0 lead is what you want. However it isn't feasible to replace all pipes in a day and so step one is doing as little damage as possible, then we reduce even that.
install a RO drinking water
People will get one for their whole house, which is great unless your home has leaded pipes...
It sounds like something people would think of, but they often don't.
If your house has leaded pipes, you can get a small RO either by your sink, or before the hose that connects to your fridge is a better plan. It doesn't have to be by your fridge, it can be where the hose meets pipe which is usually out of the way.
The real solution is replacing the piping, but that shits gets expensive.
A small RO to your fridge is doable even when renting, and if you get tests done and it's high, some landlords would pay it just to show they're not liable and did something to address the issue if it's high.
A whole house ro filter is evpensive, so I doubt most will install one vs a drinking water system. Most plumbers won't know about a whole house system much less sell one.
unless you live in an area where the water is so bad your showers dosen't get you clean. Then you can get one - but you should have one.
Because of urban sprawl lots of homes in cities have wells still.
House built in the 40s before city water had expanded can still be on a well, and septic tanks.
Like lead pipes it's something that just never got updated.
Although because of the risk of old septic tanks collapsing, some cities have programs where if you hook up the to city services for switching and filling in the septic can get spread over like 20-30 years as an add on to your water bill.
there is normally nothing wrong with well water. I have lab reports on my current well to prove it.