EPA pushing new limits on lead in drinking water

Biden administration hopes to finalize costly new rule by 2024, official says

WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency announced Thursday that it intends to propose stricter limits on the amount of lead allowable in drinking water and to begin replacing the millions of lead pipes that snake throughout the country and pose a significant public health threat.

Lead is a neurotoxin that can damage the brain and kidneys and interfere with red blood cells that carry oxygen to all parts of the body. It poses particular dangers to children, whose nervous systems and brains are still developing. From the earliest days of municipal water systems, lead was commonly used in pipes, where it can leach into drinking water.

Today, as many as 10 million lead service lines deliver water to schools, offices, homes and day care centers throughout the country. By one industry estimate, it could cost as much as $60 billion to replace them all.

Congress approved just a fraction of that amount — $15 billion — for lead pipe replacement — as part of the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure law signed last month by President Joe Biden.

Until it was banned in 1978, lead-based paint was used in residential homes, where it poses a hazard to anyone who might ingest paint chips or inhale lead in dust. About 24 million housing units are considered to have significant lead-based paint hazards.

In previewing the plan, administration officials Wednesday said they did not have a time frame for replacing the millions of lead pipes, saying they wanted it done as soon as “feasible.” Current federal regulations set a limit of 15 micrograms per liter of lead in drinking water, but health experts have long argued that lead should be eliminated from water supplies.

“The science on lead is settled,” Michael Regan, administrator of the EPA, said in a statement. “There is no safe level of exposure, and it is time to remove this risk to support thriving people and vibrant communities.”

A senior official said the administration hoped to finalize the new rule by 2024. It is also unclear what the new standard will be.

And the EPA will allow a Trump-era set of lead policies to take effect — despite opposition from environmental groups.

Under the Trump administration, the EPA updated the 1991 Lead and Copper Rule, the primary regulation regarding lead in drinking water, for the first time in nearly three decades. But the agency rejected the advice of top medical and scientific experts to require the replacement of all lead pipes and service lines.

Instead, the EPA under President Donald Trump more than doubled the amount of time allowed for utilities to replace contaminated water systems.

But Biden officials, speaking to reporters Wednesday night, said the Trump administration rules included some important steps — like requiring water utilities to identify and publicly report the locations of all their lead service pipes. That will now go forward, starting immediately.