Getting the lead out, 10 years after Flint

The Biden administration has taken the most significant step toward protecting our drinking water from lead since the start of the Flint, Michigan, water crisis a decade ago.

Clean water

October 28, 2024

clean tap water — Sonsart | Shutterstock.com

Douglas H. Phelps

President and Executive Director, The Public Interest Network

The Biden administration has taken the most significant step toward protecting our drinking water from lead since the start of the Flint, Michigan, water crisis a decade ago.

The Environmental Protection Agency has finalized a rule that requires full replacement of toxic lead pipes in most communities over the next decade.

EPA’s 10-year deadline will lead to consequential improvement in public health. The single largest source of lead in America’s drinking water are the roughly 9 million toxic pipes still in homes and buildings nationwide. Earlier guidelines and some states had projected that replacing lead service lines would take decades and decades. Now the finish line is in sight.

The Public Interest Network’s flagship organizations, PIRG and Environment America, applaud this milestone and are proud to have advocated alongside our allies for federal funding in the bipartisan infrastructure law to remove these toxic pipes and for swift EPA action to safeguards Americans’ health.

The work is not done, however. EPA’s final rule does not require water utilities to halt the widespread contamination of schools’ drinking water. While few schools have lead service lines, lead in schools’ water largely comes from interior plumbing and fixtures.

No level of lead is safe for children to drink, especially on a daily basis at school. Even low lead levels can damage children’s growth, cognition and behavior, negatively affecting their entire lives.

That’s why PIRG and Environment America have focused on ending contamination of schools’ water since the launch of our Get the Lead Out campaign in 2017. In the early years of this effort, we focused on incremental state policies to at least remediate high levels of lead at school, which we and our allies won in several states including Colorado, Maryland, Missouri, Montana and Washington.

Yet, our 2023 assessment of state policies (or lack thereof) revealed that most states had been doing little to prevent lead contamination of schools’ water.

Click here to see an interactive version of the map above and read our 2023 report, in which we awarded states grades based on the specific measures they endorsed to ensure lead-free water at school.

Now, PIRG and Environment America’s networks of state organizations are now redoubling our efforts at the state and local level.

Thanks in part to our advocacy, a growing number of jurisdictions and school districts — including in Houston, Philadelphia, San Diego and Washington, D.C. — have adopted much stronger lead prevention measures. California PIRG worked with San Diego’s school board for two years to develop and enhance its plans to ensure safe drinking water. Our state offices in Pennsylvania, PennEnvironment and PennPIRG, worked with the Black Church Center for Justice and Equity and the American Heart Association to urge the Philadelphia school district to address its lead crisis.

Our actions are also helping to spur stronger policies at the state level. We were proud to join a large coalition effort in Michigan, the home of Flint. Lawmakers in several states including Wisconsin, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania are expected to consider legislation similar to Michigan’s in 2025. PennEnvironment has been working with a bipartisan set of legislators to lay the groundwork this year, while PennEnvironment Research & Policy Center recently published Lead in PA School Drinking Water to highlight the need for policy action.

PennEnvironment Director David Masur advocating for a bill to Get the Lead Out. Photo Credit: Senate Republican Communications photography department.

America is the wealthiest and most powerful nation the world has ever known. If we can’t make use of readily available solutions to keep our kids safe from lead in their drinking water, then what is all that wealth and power for? The ongoing plight of communities from Flint to Philadelphia and San Diego compels PIRG and Environment America to keep working until the drinking water of all American schools and neighborhoods is finally lead-free.

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Douglas H. Phelps

President and Executive Director, The Public Interest Network

Doug is President and Executive Director of The Public Interest Network. As director of MASSPIRG starting in 1979, he conceived and helped organize the Fund for the Public Interest, U.S. PIRG, National Environmental Law Center, Green Century Capital Management, Green Corps and Environment America, among other groups. Doug ran the public interest careers program at the Harvard Law School from 1976-1986. He is a graduate of Colorado State University and the Harvard Law School.