123 – and growing: A national movement to replace toxic lead pipes
123. That’s the number of municipalities and water utilities - in addition to elected officials, philanthropic organizations, labor unions, government officials, and nonprofit organizations - who participated in the Biden-Harris Administration's “Get the Lead Out” Summit on January 27th, including Vice President Kamala Harris, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Marcia Fudge, EPA Administrator Michael Regan, Office of Water Assistant Administrator Radhika Fox, and Senior Advisor to POTUS Mitch Landrieu. (see highlights of the top remarks from these speakers by Shawn Kerachesky).
The event was intended to build momentum for replacing lead pipes over the next ten years. The Environmental Policy Innovation Center (EPIC) is a founding member of the “Get the Lead Out” Partnership and attended the January 27th event. Like other founding members, we support the White House Guiding Principles to Reduce Lead and Protect Families and Communities as a key effort in ensuring equitable and efficient inventory and replacement efforts.
EPIC’s Executive Director, Tim Male, spoke on a panel at the January 27th event that focused on the role of nonprofit organizations and philanthropy in partnerships to advance and elevate lead service line replacement programs. In his remarks, Tim emphasized the importance of speed to overcome obstacles such as delays and red tape that many municipalities - especially small and medium sized - often face.
This partnership is being launched right as the first round of the historic $40 billion for water infrastructure improvements is beginning to be funded, including the $15 billion for lead service line replacement.
Over 100 entities, including EPIC, have agreed to be included in the partnership, and have signed onto the shared set of principles. Partners commit to do the following:
Replace the whole lead pipe, not just the portion owned by the homeowner
Explore all funding opportunities to ensure a speedy implementation of lead service line replacement.
Promote health-based blood lead testing, including testing in high-risk areas, such as in schools and childcare facilities and in areas with lead service lines.
Engage with communities in communication and project planning throughout the lead service line identification, planning, and replacement process, while working quickly and efficiently to mitigate lead exposure.
Use innovative data, science, modeling, and mapping to guide lead mitigation and develop publicly accessible inventories.
Spread best practices to employ individual plumbers, municipal labor, large firms, and apprentice programs in pipe replacement contracting, promoting local and unionized workforce wherever possible.
Those principles - combined with the partnership goal of replacing all pipes within 10 years - are important because they put the 123 participants on record. Before this funding became available, it was common for communities to have little knowledge of lead pipe locations, no plan to replace them - or a plan that might take a century to achieve. And many utilities were replacing only the half of the lead pipe closest to the street, potentially making lead poisoning worse. These principles are a new beginning for what we hope will grow to a list of thousands of communities volunteering to get rid of lead pipes faster and more equitably.
Over the past two years, EPIC has provided technical assistance to several municipalities through the Lead Free Water Challenge, and has also launched a Lead-Free Water Movement of elected officials dedicated to replacing lead pipes. At the summit, EPIC announced that we will support 50 additional communities over the next three years as a part of an ongoing effort to connect more communities to federal funds for water infrastructure projects through EPIC’s role as a Funding Navigator and a National Environmental Finance Center (EFC).
A recording of the event can be found here. EPIC is committed to supporting the effort to move the country forward for safer, lead-free drinking water for all, and more about our work to replace lead pipes is here.