How many lead pipes can we replace with new federal funding?

The bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, now signed into law, includes $15 billion earmarked for lead pipe replacement.  EPIC crunched some numbers to see exactly where individual states could come out if they efficiently used this funding, as well as additional funding in the Build Back Better Act, which passed in the House last week, to replace as many pipes as possible.  

To understand how the funds will impact lead pipe replacement around the country, we used Natural Resources Defense Council data showing estimated lead pipes per state, but we scaled these numbers up to reflect the EPA estimate of nine million total pipes across the country (NRDC’s total only covered an estimate 6.5 million pipes). We used EPA’s average cost of replacement of $4,700 per pipe as the cost to take out a single lead pipe. We also used EPA’s Drinking Water State Revolving Fund allocations to figure out how much each state is likely to receive. With $15 billion for lead service line replacement in the infrastructure law and currently $9 billion in the Build Back Better Act now moving through Congress, we lowered the funding levels for replacement to $13 billion and $8 billion respectively to account for administrative costs as well as funding that will likely go towards helping water utilities inventory (before they replace) their lead pipes.

What we found is that with the funding from the infrastructure law, fifteen states should be able to fully fund the replacement of every single lead water pipe within their borders. If the Build Back Better Act passes with current funding levels for lead service line replacement, an additional nine states can replace every single lead pipe. In addition, with these two sources of federal funding in place, fourteen states would be able to replace at least half of all the lead pipes within their borders.  

One of the biggest risks is that states won’t work to aggressively control per pipe replacement costs - or that utilities will include infrastructure improvements that are unrelated to lead in their proposals for funding.  EPA and states need to work hard to ensure the funding is used efficiently and equitably, that unrelated costs are not added in to lead pipe replacement projects, that effective procurement policies are used, and that more money is eventually allocated to the remaining states to get the lead out once and for all.