Got Lead in Your Water? The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law May Be Poised to Help

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Humans have no known safe level of exposure to lead. Blood lead levels have devastating consequences, especially for children, affecting their brain development and almost every organ in their bodies. Various government organizations have enacted measures to combat lead contamination in drinking water and its dangerous human health consequences by replacing lead service lines. At the federal level, the Environmental Protection Agency promulgated the Lead and Copper Rule Revisions, which requires states to replace lead service lines. At the state level, governments have programs to fund the replacement of lead service lines in their communities, but these funds often fall short of their needs. While these efforts have reduced the problem of lead contamination in drinking water, many of the remaining lead service lines in the U.S. are found buried under aging cities, often with low-income populations. Litigation brought by public interest groups has spurred faster replacement, but this has only been deployed in a handful of cities. The greater leverage point is increased federal funding to eradicate the problem. In 2021, the U.S. Congress passed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, signed by President Biden. It included a historically large increase in supplemental funds for the replacement of lead service lines over five years. In early 2023, the Biden-Harris Administration announced a campaign to get lead out of water and accelerate the pace of the solutions. This article examines the scope of the problem of replacing lead service lines in states in the Great Lakes region, the cost estimates of financing their replacement, and the decisions states need to make now to access and effectively spend federal money from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to remove lead from the water of the nation’s disadvantaged communities.