The Opportunity

Today, we have an unprecedented opportunity to eliminate the solvable problem of lead in drinking water. This is largely due to several major developments:

President Biden’s stated goal of replacing 100 percent of the nation’s estimated ten million lead pipes located in 11,000 communities.

Without key changes in policies, procurement, data management, and practices, we may miss the true potential of this moment.

Municipalities we talk to around the country - especially smaller and medium-sized and overburdened ones - often don’t know where their lead lines are or how many they have, which will change with the October 2024 inventory deadline in new federal lead regulations. When 11,000 communities around the country complete their lead inventories, we will know the true scale and scope of the problem, and despite EPA recommendations to do inventories and replacements simultaneously, many water systems may be rushing to access federal funding all at once. We need to plan ahead.

Smaller and medium-sized municipalities often don’t have the technology and tools to clearly locate and map their lines, update their data systems, digitize their paper records, update maps in real time as replacement happens, or prioritize replacement in the most burdened neighborhoods. Municipalities sometimes don’t have the right tools or personnel to communicate effectively to the public, or the needed partners on the ground in the community to build local trust. And they often don’t have the capacity to create a financial plan and design and implement an effective lead service line replacement program. In many cases, too, communities may procure contractors from outside their region, rather than hire locally. 

Newark is an example of a city that replaced 100 percent of their lead pipes in three years with a coordinated effort between city officials and other partners, leadership at all levels of their local government, critical funding that included municipal bonding, and a staggering 70 percent of the program costs staying in the community through local hiring and workforce development.

The question is… how do we create more Newarks in 11,000 communities across the country with lead pipes?

While replacing one pipe may seem simple, replacing ten million of them in thousands of communities is not. Municipal governments need fast and cost-effective ways to identify where their lead lines are, digitize and manage their data, communicate effectively to the public, prioritize burdened populations and neighborhoods, center the community’s needs, and hire, train, and procure contractors locally to carry out replacements.

Go back to all water team initiatives.