December 16, 2023
We can all have safe drinking water free of lead across the United States – but it’s probably going to cost us about $30 billion.
There’s a lot in that one sentence that we need to talk about. And don’t worry I’m going to tell you all about what’s going on in a second and I’m going to tell you what you can do now to make sure your family is safe from this water — but first I want to thank my subscribers for voting for this story as the bonus this week. If you want to vote too make sure you subscribe to my page during my next live event or you can always follow these steps and subscribe right now.
In case you didn’t know – the use of lead pipes was banned in the United States in the 1980s, but there are still more than 9 million lead service line pipes in use in use to this day that are still delivering water to families in neighborhoods across America. These lead pipes have been hidden underground for decades and according to the CDC the water that comes from them can pose a risk to the health and wellbeing of those who drink that water. According to the environmental protection agency these lead pipes remain disproportionately concentrated in low income communities.
So that’s the problem. When President Biden took office he promised to remove all the lead pipes in this country by 2031. So just a few weeks ago the EPA rolled out this proposed new rule that mandates all water utilities and water companies in this country locate those lead pipes, dig them up and replace them in the next 10 years with all the water utilities locating those lead pipes and coming up with the action plan to replace them by the fall of 2024. Sounds reasonable right? Well – the problem is – the cost. In the bipartisan infrastructure bill that was passed in 2022 – Congress allocated about $27 billion of taxpayer money to specifically remove these pipes and clean up the drinking water systems. The EPA estimates that’s actually going to cost $45 billion to do all that– the water industry thinks the number will actually be closer to $60 billion. And like with everything – costs just keep going up the longer the process takes. So you can see the math isn’t mathing and there’s clearly a shortfall of at least $30 billion.
So who is going to pay for that? At this point –no one really knows. Becuase this is just a proposed rule – this still has to go through the public comment period so things could change, but it’s hard to imagine a $30 billion dollar shortfall is just going to magically go away. We’ll have to see.
So what’s so bad about lead in the water? Well according to the CDC and EPA – there are no safe levels of lead in drinking water. But the current law says if more than 10-percent of the sites sampled drinking water in an area exceed the “action level” of 15 parts per billion of lead – the utility has to take steps to improve its corrosion controls and replace at least 3% of its lead service lines annually. Not only is this new proposed rule requiring utilities to remove the lead pipes – but it’s also proposing lowering the “action level” of lead to 10-parts per billion instead of 15. Exposure to lead in drinking water can cause serious issues for babies and young kids including behavioral problems and in adults it can increase risk for heart disease, high blood pressure, kidney or nervous system problems.
Now – to the important part about how to know if your tap water is coming from one of those lead pipes or if there is lead in your water. First – you need to contact your water utility and ask them if your house is connected to lead service line – if you have a well you need to call your health department. If you ask — both will come out and test your water. Keep in mind – if there is lead in your water – it may not be coming from a lead service line you may have a copper pipe in your house that has lead in it – especially if it was installed before 1986, you may have a galvanized pipe that can include lead particles or you may have a faucet that could contain lead.
EPA Guide to protecting your home’s water from lead here.
More on the EPA lead pipe proposed regulation here.
