A decade after the Flint, Michigan, water crisis raised alarms about the dangers of lead in tap water, President Joe Biden is setting a 10-year deadline for U.S. cities to replace lead pipes and make drinking water safe for all Americans.

A decade after the Flint, Michigan, water crisis raised alarms about the continuing dangers of lead in tap water, President Joe Biden is setting a 10-year deadline for cities across the nation to replace their lead pipes, finalizing an aggressive approach aimed at ensuring that drinking water is safe for all Americans.

Biden is expected to announce the final Environmental Protection Agency rule Tuesday in the swing state of Wisconsin during the final month of a tight presidential campaign. The announcement highlights an issue — safe drinking water — that Kamala Harris has prioritized as vice president and during her presidential campaign. The new rule supplants a looser standard set by former President Donald Trump’s administration that did not include a universal requirement to replace lead pipes.

Biden and Harris believe it’s “a moral imperative” to ensure that everyone has access to clean drinking water, EPA Administrator Michael Regan told reporters Monday. “We know that over 9 million legacy lead pipes continue to deliver water to homes across our country. But the science has been clear for decades: There is no safe level of lead in our drinking water.’’

  • KrankyKong@lemmy.world
    5·
    2 months ago

    Where are you from? Lead pipes are still a thing most everywhere unfortunately. A relic of the past. They aren’t used for new construction, but they are a problem with older infrastructure.

    • sebsch
      4·
      2 months ago

      I am from Berlin Germany. Just looked it up and no. The main grid is 100% free from lead.

      https://www.bwb.de/de/wasseranalyse.php

      Edit: may be a German thing. We value tab water really high. The quality standards are higher than from bottled water.

      • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
        5·
        2 months ago

        Germany banned Lead Pipes in the southern region over a century ago but elsewhere still installed them in homes until 1973 and started regulating lead content in water in 2013, at which time A LOT of infrastructure was removed and replaced.

        Still, many people are not aware of the lead pipe problem. “Drinking water in Germany is generally of high quality, and that’s the message people take with them,” says Karin Gerhardy, of the German Technical and Scientific Association for Gas and Water (DVGW), which works closely with water suppliers and authorities.

      • KrankyKong@lemmy.world
        2·
        2 months ago

        Well that’s good. I was reading that in the UK, they still have lead pipes, but they don’t repair them. If they have to repair it, they just replace it. I imagine it’s the same here. No one’s laying new lead pipes anywhere that I know of.