President Biden has announced a plan to “strengthen its Lead and Copper Rule that would require water systems to replace lead service lines within 10 years."
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.
I've long wondered if lead exposure accounts for their behaviors over the past couple decades. Lead that accumulates in the bones over one's lifetime leaches out into the bloodstream when one becomes elderly, like calcium does with osteoporosis. Cognitive issues and rage are associated with lead exposure.
I've long wondered if lead exposure accounts for their behaviors over the past couple decades.
That's exactly what has happened.
Imagine, if you will, a country that has a lot of land area, which uses personal ground transport to grt around. Imagine if, for decades, those personal transport machines used large, ineffcient engines that ran on a fuel that caused aerosolized lead to be blown into the atmosphere at a staggering rate?
I worked on a community gardening project in the city when I was in grad school. We had an ordinary urban residential lot and wanted to plant a community vegetable garden.
The soil was so incredibly contaminated with lead from 70 years old leaded gasoline that we had to scrape off the top 6 ft of topsoil and send it to a toxic waste dump, and the replace all of that. Then we built raised garden beds to mitigate lead uptake in the plants.
Most cities in the world are still heavily contaminated and lead will never go away.
Came here to say this. I look forward to whatever their excuse is to not solve the toxic drinking water problem. And likely immediately spend more on DoD or cut taxes to the rich.
Not a hexbear, but the leftist "Biden bad" narrative wouldn't demonize investing in infrastructure, they would call out shit like unconditional support for Israel or failing to meaningfully improve social safety nets via Medicare for All, or other such measures. Biden is a Liberal, at the end of the day, and that's not going to please any leftist except by not being a fascist.
Huzzah! Another great move by the Biden administration that will probably be overlooked by most commenters, like his labor board appointments that led to the recent union resurgence were.
I'm afraid your opinion of the bare minimum is not the universal definition of it. You shouldn't be surprised when people differ with you on that.
When everything's below the bare minimum, it becomes a meaningless metric. You'll still have to rank the available options, and there can still be a huge difference between those options.
Those that caused the switchover to Flint River water that resulted in the disaster surfacing definitely should be drawn and quartered, no question. Snyder and his city managers put all this nonsense in motion and should be charged with crimes against humanity.
However, it's also a systemic, deeper problem in the US. Flint's pipes didn't suddenly become terrible overnight. The entire water system was in disrepair for decades. The only reason it didn't surface sooner was they were regulating the water going through it to hold the demons at bay. Even when it was working, pre-disaster, the water was safe to drink, but horrible from a drinking water perspective.
The whole system was a giant leaking piece of junk that basically kept working due to positive pressure pushing contaminants out of the leaks, and the pH level being maintained so the old pipes wouldn't start leeching into the water. That a GM engine plant had to switch water sources because the water was damaging the engine construction is just mind-blowing. Human bodies are vastly more delicate than engines.
Flint's not the only one either, many American cities with aging water infrastructure that wasn't properly maintained all have/had similar problems.
We are such a short-sighted country that seems to so quickly forget that our infrastructure requires constant maintenance and updates. I really think the generation that got to live among all the New Deal and post WWII infrastructure just thought they lived in a magic time where all this stuff just exists forever, rather than realizing it takes stewardship to keep things "the way they are". Now, we on the back end, reap the rewards of everything falling apart at the same time, faster than we can fix it.
A friend of mine was starting into a tirade a while back about how terrible it is that all water pipe installed in houses today is plastic even though we know BPAs are killing people. I suggested that they might be better than lead pipe. We still high five from time to time.
I know people were charged for their involvement in the crisis but from what I can tell they got out of the charges. I think there may be a case that is still pending, though
Yeah! Tell that bad British person to shut up about my freedom water! They almost made me drop my crayon and I'm trying to find dot #6! I can't wait to find out which shape these dots are going to make me draw... There's seven dots and the word "stop" in the middle, so I'm thinking a school bus!
It’s worth noting that 9.2 million homes is an extremely small percentage of American homes and I’d say almost all of them are extremely rural homes or dying rural towns that just need relocated. Think of North Dakota as akin to the Siberian oblasts or northern Finland, neither get a lot of infrastructure care because no almost one is there. This is the Biden admin trying to look out for the little guy that’s been ignored the last century
To be completely fair, a layer builds up in the pipe which stops the lead being an issue unless you royally fuck up like Flint. That said, it still should've been fixed
It's such a staggering amount of work and money that I think is hard for most people to comprehend. Though, if dispersed properly, will benefit local workers as they usually require they get paid prevailing wage. Which can be pretty fucking high depending on where you live.
And even once all of the lead service lines are replaced, that's just from main to the meter at most. All of the internal fixtures are the owner's responsibility, and you better believe tons of old houses are still full of lead pipes.
This is something that is going to take decades, and you're absolutely right that we should have started decades ago.
Germany outlawed installing lead pipes in 1973, this year operating them got outlawed, though already ten years ago the permissible lead concentrations were so low as to be basically impossible achieve if you had even short runs of lead pipes. All the main lines got replaced IIRC in the 80s, latest, can't find numbers right now, though apparently they rarely used lead there in the first place.
Also, btw, if you're already digging up water pipes it's quite easy to install some cable ducts while you're at it, put all those power and telco lines underground and stop looking like a 3rd world country. That kind of last-mile infrastructure should be managed by municipal-level monopoly, if an ISP wants to sell you something they can hook up to the municipality's IXP and rent the rest of the way to your house at fixed, fair, rates. It's a natural monopoly: It makes as much economical sense to run more than two power or telco connections to a house as it makes to run more than one street to your house: Costs a lot of money to run that second street and as soon as you did your competitor is going to lower their prices, which they can do because their investment already amortised, and leave you stranded with your investment because why would the residents of the house switch to your offering if your competitor is cheaper. There's an opportunity when switching from copper to fiber but fiber will last for the next 1000 years so it's not really a solution.
It's just another case of "it costs too much to fix it, so just keep slapping a bandaid on it and kick it down the road", just like the rest of our infrastructure. Yet we have billions available to "defend" ourselves 🙄
I actually just listened to a podcast about NYCs water supply. To back up your claim, they started pipe #3 around the 1970s and only recently finished (or should have by 2021, the episode was from before then)
You also gotta get rid of microplastics and forever chemicals, and bump public education funding up about 80%, lol. Once a generation gets a bad education, they are pretty stoved in.
What are the odds that this is just a campaign promise and he never even attempts to actually do this?
Edit: this was a genuine question. I've seen lots of broken campaign promises in my day. Politicians will promise you the moon every election cycle, but very few ever deliver.
Biden has had more accomplishments in his presidency than most.
TL;DR: largest economic stimulus packages ever passed in US history. Designed to prevent a COVID depression, build US manufacturing, support western democracies and compete against chinese manufacturing, and to decarbonize the US to fight climate change.
Plus there was the whole clean up the trumpian COVID mess and support Ukraine being invaded by Russia.
Passed the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure package to increase investment in the national network of bridges and roads, airports, public transport and national broadband internet, as well as waterways and energy systems.
Helped get more than 500 million life-saving COVID-19 vaccinations in the arms of Americans through the American Rescue Plan.
Stopped a 30-year streak of federal inaction on gun violence by signing the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act that created enhanced background checks, closed the “boyfriend” loophole and provided funds for youth mental health.
Made a $369 billion investment in climate change, the largest in American history, through the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.
Ended the longest war in American history by pulling the troops out of Afghanistan.
Provided $10,000 to $20,000 in college debt relief to Americans with loans who make under $125,000 a year.
Cut child poverty in half through the American Rescue Plan.
Capped prescription drug prices at $2,000 per year for seniors on Medicare through the Inflation Reduction Act.
Passed the COVID-19 relief deal that provided payments of up to $1,400 to many struggling U.S. citizens while supporting renters and increasing unemployment benefits.
Achieved historically low unemployment rates after the pandemic caused them to skyrocket.
Imposed a 15% minimum corporate tax on some of the largest corporations in the country, ensuring that they pay their fair share, as part of the historic Inflation Reduction Act.
Recommitted America to the global fight against climate change by rejoining the Paris Agreement.
Strengthened the NATO alliance in support of Ukraine after the Russian invasion by endorsing the inclusion of world military powers Sweden and Finland.
Authorized the assassination of the Al Qaeda terrorist Ayman al-Zawahiri, who became head of the organization after the death of Osama bin Laden.
Gave Medicare the power to negotiate prescription drug prices through the Inflation Reduction Act while also reducing government health spending.
Held Vladimir Putin accountable for his invasion of Ukraine by imposing stiff economic sanctions.
Boosted the budget of the Internal Revenue Service by nearly $80 billion to reduce tax evasion and increase revenue.
Created more jobs in one year (6.6 million) than any other president in U.S. history.
Reduced healthcare premiums under the Affordable Care Act by $800 a year as part of the American Rescue Plan.
Signed the PACT Act to address service members’ exposure to burn pits and other toxins.
Signed the CHIPS and Science Act to strengthen American manufacturing and innovation.
Reauthorized the Violence Against Women Act through 2027.
Halted all federal executions after the previous administration reinstated them after a 17-year freeze.
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.
This year Germany passed a law to completely remove all lead pipes until January 2026.
But the allowed levels of lead in drinking water have already been lowered so much since 2013 (10 microgram per liter, this has been lowered again since to 5 microgram per liter) that any water that passed through a lead pipe cannot realistically fulfill the requirements, thus there are only extremely few households left with any lead in their pipes.
Coating the pipes is not a way out of this, since Germany has expressly forbidden this as a way to renovate.
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.
"An initial estimate is that 25% of domestic dwellings in the EU have a lead pipe, either as a connection to the water main, or as part of the internal plumbing, or both, potentially putting 120 million people at risk from lead in drinking water within the EU. "
As of 14 years ago! And Europe has a lot of former communist countries that hasn't fully reached Western European standards yet.
Led has been illegal to use in many contexts for decades in EU, including water pipes, and for instance electrical wiring and soldering.
This is a hugely underrated win imo. We have no idea the damage lead is doing to us, we can only guess the damage in health problems is in the billions. Politicians usually don't give a shit about this so for Biden to do so is a big outstretched hand and big achievement
It's a win, but not really underrated. We can test for lead easily in both the water supply and people, there are some isolated areas it's bad, but it's not a problem in most areas.
Why? I'm sure there are some vocal extremists who will shit on anything Biden does, but I know quite a few republicans and all them support this move. Do democrats and republicans really live under the illusion they're so different from one another instead of almost exactly the same like they are?
I used to be a republican when I was young, mostly because they understand economics better, but then later I found myself disagreeing with them on social/censorship/privacy issues. One side wants to impede freedom one way, and the other wants to impede it the other way, that's when I realized that both parties are hypocritical by nature. And I doubt it was knowingly designed this way, but all either side ever does is end up growing government and removing freedoms aside from the rare big wins towards actual liberty.
Didn't mean to go into rant mode, it's just annoying to me when democrats call republicans stupid or vice-versa. No, neither side is stupid. They have reasons for their beliefs, and while they do go through mental gymnastics to convince themselves their platform isn't hypocritical, they're both still coming from a place of trying to improve the world. But you bring that up and then people will use "whataboutism" all day to point to specific examples that seem particularly indefensible on one side or the other. This then makes productive discussion impossible. We all need to acknowledge that the "other" side aren't heartless bastards who don't care about the rich or who don't know how money works or whatever ignorant complaint you have, actually take time and learn.
Edit: Truth struck much too hard for many people lmao
Republicans are heartless evil bastards. Abortion bans. LGBT existence bans. Book bans. No gun controls. Underfunded education. Climate denial. Unchecked capitalism and inflation. Housing and stufent debt crises. Grifting trillions from taxpayers. Witch hunts against politicians family members who stayed out of politics. Sketchy relationships with the Russians, Chinese, and Saudis.
my little town is replacing all the water mains.. when the streets above them need repair or rebuilding, along with the lines to customers where needed. they've done two streets in the last ten years, each about 8-10 blocks long. they've got a long ways to go. 10 years ain't nearly enough time unless someone is gonna pony-up a ton of cash.
If almost guarantee the federal government will throw a couple billion at this, the local utilities will mismanage it, and the project will be completed in 2050 after another round or two of investment and maybe the army Corp of engineers taking over from bubba’s utility coop
My town is putting pipes next to the road instead of under it. That way they can work on pipes without tearing out the road, and when working on the road they don't have to worry about the pipes (as much - I assume they still have to run under)
Trump saved us from losing our heritage! We grew off of lead pipes and those damn liberals were going to strip us of that!! Lol I hate that this is an actual possibility.
It's actually pretty common around the world. Most places stopped putting in new ones but haven't gone back and phased out the old ones.
The UK and Germany for example didn't discontinue the practice until the 70s.
Usually there's a coating in the pipes that prevents contamination, allowing utilities to replace the pipes with more modern replacements as they do routine maintenance. There's a big focus on doing that maintenance ahead of schedule in the US after a series of very public incidents where that coating was damaged and lead got in the water causing serious issues.
Key word is "proposal", which will be used for the election. But will not be actually fought for, or if somehow makes it through will likely be gutted to give corps money and just retain the name. I am thinking it would be stopped just like all the bullshit was on technicalities that we never hear of except when shit that would help people is brought forward (the shit involving that stupid-ass parliamentarian a few years ago being a great example). And the mass public of liberals or otherwise the "um I really don't care about politics" folks will just remember it was mentioned at some point and assume it was done. Just another failure of our larger problem of mass amnesia. Similar to how so many idiots voted for Biden over Bernie because they thought they both were for Medicare for All, since Biden had stated multiple times that "healthcare is a right". Fuck him, his party, the Republicans, corpo media, and especially the capitalist ruling class that owns both parties!
In unrelated news totally not privately owned utility companies are about to sue the government with the argument, "the current Congress didn't sign off on this regulatory change that an older Congress gave the agency the power to do."
This and more in the decade long SCOTUS hates us all crisis.
I'm pretty sure we replaced ours in the 70's. But better late than never I guess.
But we also replaced it for wiring, because you know... it's kind of poisonous.
Fuck yes. We have needed to get rid of that shit for awhile. I'd also love it if we converted over to metric at the same time, but I don't think that's as likely...
with what money? the billions sent to ukraine? i'm ok with the proposal, but like most things dems dream up, there is little to no thought about funding. this is why most of the time the gop is against it. then people scream about how the gop is against providing clean drinking water. *facepalm
You think billions of cash and gold were sent to Ukraine ? lol
The Pentagon values the hardware and equipment at the then production costs that are just sitting there where either we pay to safely store and maintain the tanks, etc or safely dispose of expired munitions and ammo.
Or, you know, why not send over this surplus we already bought and paid for, paying to store it or destroy it, to a country defending itself from genocidal invaders and help stop imperialism.
Sure, there is overhead to and costs for all this, but it's a drop in the bucket to what you think it is.
Shouldn't states and cities be responsible for doing this, not the federal government? People in one state shouldn't be paying for the failure of another state to provide necessary infrastructure.
You may be surprised at where these lines are. Plenty of blue cities are loaded with them. The rural red areas near me didn't even get public water systems until the 80s so none of them have lead.
Fucking prick waited until the last year of his administration to announce this 10 year rule which he will only be able to defend for 4 years even if reelected. God damn fucking idiot democratic party.
Projects are already underway and have replaced our two lagest lead service lines in the medium-small Illinois city where I live via federal funding over the last year. City literally just applied for the funds from this same program and hired private contractors once the funds were approved. About 3 months of construction on each of the 2 roads under which our main service lines run, and now lead has been fully removed from 60% of residents water supply, with the last 40% to occur over the next 18 months.
The only hard part is cost - there are thousands of cities in the US that need to do something. The work is straight forward and easy for a crew to do. However it takes a lot of money to pay that crew (and the materials they use)