LEAD AND COPPER RULE REVISIONS FULL

“I was here during the Obama administration,” Shimkus said. John Shimkus (R-Ill.) said, however, that the Trump administration should get credit for taking some action to revise the rule. Zero would be great,” Mae Wu, the Natural Resources Defense Council’s senior director of health and food, said on Tuesday.

However, opponents have said that looser rules on how soon cities should replace their pipes will result in lead remaining in systems for more time and also say the 15 ppb action level should be lower. Proponents of the change say that the trigger level will allow for more proactive action. They would only be required to replace 3 percent of lead service lines each year, less than the current requirement of 7 percent.

LEAD AND COPPER RULE REVISIONS FULL

The EPA’s proposed overhaul to the 1991 Lead and Copper Rule, unveiled last year, established a 10 parts per billion (ppb) “trigger” level at which cities would be required to reevaluate their water treatment processes and possibly add corrosion-control chemicals to city water.Īt 15 ppb, cities would be required to replace the full length of all of the lead service lines in their system. “Compliance with such a mandate would take decades, cost billions of dollars, and would prevent water systems from allocating their limited budgets to other projects and initiatives that may deliver greater public health benefits,” she added. One witness, however, argued that requiring service lines to be replaced would be a costly burden that would take resources away from other programs.Īngela Licata, the deputy commissioner of New York City’s Department of Environmental Protection, said she “appreciates that EPA’s proposal avoids setting unattainable mandates such as a deadline for the replacement of all lead service lines nationwide,” according to her prepared remarks. “We’re never supposed to expose a child to lead,” Hanna-Attisha added during a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing. Pediatrician Mona Hanna-Attisha, who helped publicize the Flint, Mich., water crisis, said a plan based solely on health protection would eliminate lead from service lines and maximize corrosion control so children are not exposed to it. Experts and advocates on Tuesday criticized the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) proposed rule to combat lead in the water supply, calling for the agency to require that service lines containing lead be replaced.

Lead and copper rule revisions