Marking the 10th anniversary of the water crisis in Flintbetlead, Mich., President Biden on Tuesday gave water utilities 10 more years to replace virtually every lead pipe in the country, imposing the strictest limits to date on a neurotoxin that is particularly dangerous to infants and children.
The president, surrounded by yellow waterworks trucks and speaking to workers at the Department of Public Works field office in Milwaukee, described the new regulation as an overdue environmental justice breakthrough for disadvantaged communities that he said had “borne the brunt of lead poisoning for damn too long.”
The new rule, issued by the Environmental Protection Agency, sets the most aggressive restrictions on lead in drinking water since federal standards were first set decades ago. Utilities will be required to take stock of their lead pipes and replace them over the next 10 years, a policy that four states — Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey and Rhode Island — have in place already.
It replaces less-stringent regulations, adopted during the Trump administration, on lead in drinking water.
“I’m here today to tell you that I finally insisted that it gets prioritized and I’m insisting it get done,” Mr. Biden said on Tuesday.
Beyond the immediate public-health goal of decisively purging lead pipes from drinking-water systems nationwide, the president told the crowd on Tuesday that the labor-intensive work involved would be an important source of jobs across all 50 states.
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