Nine years after the Flint crisis, the U.S. still needs to take action
by Albert Ji ’27, Opinion Contributor
On Nov. 30, 2023, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the proposed Lead and Copper Rule Improvements (LCRI). The purpose of LCRI is to protect children and adults from the significant and irreversible health effects of being exposed to lead in drinking water. Locating legacy lead pipes and achieving 100 percent lead pipe replacement within ten years are two main roles for this proposed LCRI. This seems to show that the Biden administration cares about the people and is willing to take action. However, the fact that the proposal regarding lead pipes was not made until 2023 only demonstrates the lack of attention to public health and domestic affairs on the part of the U.S. government.
To begin, the problem of lead pipes has been a recurring health concern in recent decades. Lead is a toxic substance to the human body, which can lead to a variety of hazards, including damaging the nervous system, affecting early age development, causing anemia and creating kidney damage, among others. From the 1920s to the 70s, due to the good pressure resistance, ductility and low prices, lead water pipes were the preferred choice to connect the waterworks, groundwater and taps of every household user. However, as the years of use increase, the lead in the lead pipes begins to penetrate into the tap water, resulting in a serious exceedance of the lead content. Since 2003, lead plumbing poisoning has been exposed in major cities across the United States. The Flint water crisis is the most famous one.
The Flint water crisis began in 2014 when the residents started complaining that the water from their taps tasted foul. After that, despite protests by residents lugging jugs of discolored water, officials maintained that the water was safe. In 2015, a study was conducted by researchers at Virginia Tech and revealed the problem: “Water samples collected from 252 homes through a resident-organized effort indicated citywide lead levels had spiked, with nearly 17 percent of samples registering above the federal “action level” of 15 parts per billion (ppb), the level at which corrective action must be taken. More than 40 percent measured above 5 ppb of lead, which the researchers considered an indication of a ‘very serious’ problem.”
The Flint water crisis is not an isolated case. Similar incidents broke out in Jan. 2016 in Ohio and in July 2016 in Chicago. “More than 18 million Americans got their drinking water from systems with lead violations in 2015,” according to a groundbreaking Natural Resources Defense Council report.
Unfortunately, nine years have passed since the Flint water crisis and the United States government has yet to take any substantive action on the issue of lead water pipes. We still need to wait until Oct. 16, 2024, for EPA to finalize the LCRI. According to a recent study by the University of Wisconsin in Dec. 2023, lead water pipes in the U.S. accounted for 2.17 million years of life lost. The study claims that “Lead pipe installation during this period of massive public works reduced longevity in areas that used the hazardous material by an average of 2.7 months for those whose exposure began in utero. All told, using lead pipes in water systems may have accounted for 2.17 million years lost across the U.S.” It continues, “This insight comes at an important time as the EPA discusses new rules to eliminate lead pipes across the country, where more than 15 million people are still using service lines with lead in them.”
Lead pipes have become a major water problem in the United States for years, but the passage of the formal proposal is fraught with uncertainty. As the 2024 election approaches, we can only hope that the final LCRI will not fail to be implemented due to bipartisan conflicts.
