EPA to strengthen lead protections in water

About four decades ago, when the Environmental Protection Agency was first trying to figure out what to do about lead in drinking water, Ronnie Levin quantified its damage: Roughly 40 million people drank water with dangerous levels of lead, degrading the intelligence of thousands of kids.

But new regulations were going to be costly and complicated. So, “instead of trying to deal with it substantively, they just tabled it,” Levin, a former EPA researcher, said of some of her colleagues at the agency in the 1980s.

One co-worker, though, leaked Levin’s analysis to the press, igniting a public outcry that pressured the EPA to act. And the rules it issued back then have stayed in place, with only modest changes, ever since.

Now, the EPA is on the eve of strengthening them.

Decades after officials banned lead in gasoline for new cars and stopped the sale of lead paint — huge steps toward eliminating significant sources of lead exposure to the public — there are still an estimated 500,000 U.S. children with levels of lead in their blood that are considered high, and experts say lead in drinking water is an important source.

Now the agency is aiming to further reduce lead levels in drinking water and tighten a rule that failed to prevent recent drinking water crises in cities like Flint, Michigan, and Newark, New Jersey. Although the specifics aren’t public, the agency says it will propose requiring that utilities actively replace harmful lead pipes.

President Joe Biden has called for eliminating the country’s estimated 9.2 million lead pipes, lines that connect water mains under the street to homes and businesses and are responsible for most of the lead in drinking water.

But it’s costly to send out workers to dig up the pipe, lay new ones and replant damaged landscaping. In many cities, homeowners are expected to pay to deal with the pipe on their property.

“Across the population, this has huge effects,” said

Levin, who now teaches at Harvard University’s school of public health.

Kids are especially sensitive to lead exposure and high doses significantly reduce intelligence, impair coordination and disrupt a student’s ability to focus and learn. Behavior can deteriorate. Federal officials say there is no safe level of lead for children, and even small amounts can reduce IQ scores.

The updated rules will arrive as the federal government attacks lead on several fronts, with announcements about the dangers in aviation fuel and proposed stricter limits on dust from leadbased paint in older homes and child-care facilities.

Some officials remain more focused on sources like paint dust, but attention to the danger in water grew after Flint.