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AP: EPA to strengthen lead protections in drinking water after multiple crises, including Flint
EPA to strengthen lead protections in drinking water after multiple crises, including FlintBY MICHAEL PHILLIS AND MIKE STOBBE
Updated 10:51 PM EDT, October 28, 2023
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.
…
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 already 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 that seeps into drinking water.
…
Updated 10:51 PM EDT, October 28, 2023
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.
…
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 already 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 that seeps into drinking water.
…
