Federal lead pipe rule overhauled

For the first time in three decades, the federal government on Tuesday will overhaul a rule aimed at reducing lead in drinking water across the country - a long-standing scourge made worse by the nation’s weathered and crumbling infrastructure.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s lead and copper rule, widely criticized as complicated, poorly enforced and too weak to protect the health of many Americans, has not been revised since 1991. The 409page updated version will for the first time require water utilities to test for lead at schools and child care facilities and establish a new “trigger level” for contamination at which systems must review their water treatment procedures.