The EPA “Lead and Copper Rule” - How the 1991 regulation should have helped

On September 3, 2019, US News & World Report stated that - “21 million people in the United States rely on water from utilities with health violations.” - Simply put, this is not okay. This is not something that we as a democratic society should have to fight against. It should be considered a given, as our human right to safe drinking water very clearly outlines, but at the moment this is not the case - an increasing number of households are being influenced by this outbreak of contaminated drinking water.

The real underlying issue here unfortunately prevails in the historical placement of piping containing lead, as “Until the 1950s, lead pipes to houses were common. By 1986 they were banned, but old lead pipes remain – and are corroding – across the country, especially in the Northeast, Midwest and older urban areas.” From a political standpoint, it would appear that this national issue was never really on anyone’s agenda and its seeming too large and widespread for any individual communities to even begin tackling the issue as it goes far and beyond any particular measurable area - so where would one start attacking this issue to ever come to a resolution? However, this shouldn’t count as an excuse.

“No amount of lead in the body is safe” this has proven to be true time and time again - “and children under age five are especially at risk. Lead poisoning can damage the central nervous system, reduce IQ, delay growth and cause behaviour and learning problems.” This too has been confirmed on countless occasions. Despite this knowledge, however, it still seems like it is too big of an issue to tackle for the political powers of our democracy - and as a result of this “Nearly half a million children in the U.S. have elevated blood lead levels”.

It is true that we are seeing more information surface about the issue, and it seems that the discussions are being raised regarding contaminated water anf spcifically with regards to lead in water, but is that enough? as we outlined in our last blog post, the issue is growing in popularity as a debatable topic of measures that could be taken to best rid the country of the problem at hand - but it doesn’t seem to be the main, or even the 2nd largest focus, of any of the democratic figures.

Since lead regulations were set in place by the EPA in 1991, upwards to 7000 confirmed violations of the federal Lead and Copper Rule have been recorded, which effectively limited the allowed concentration of lead in drinking water to 15 parts ber billion, whereafter “the system must undertake a number of additional actions to control corrosion.” - EPA

With these violations affecting both homes and schools in mass, they have “fluctuated over two decades, showing no clear downward trend”, which is highly concerning to say the least.

“Nearly one-third of water systems in the U.S. report that at least some of their service lines contain lead. The exact number of lead service lines is estimated at 7 to 11 million - more than 50,000 miles of lead pipes. This would mean that service lines to the homes of about 15 to 22 million people, or 7% of those served by a community water system, could contain lead”.

“More than one in five utilities do not know whether lead service lines exist for the homes they serve”.

The main and most concerning issue for us here is the lack of information that we all have available to us. We can all make assumptions and presume certain things about the safety level and quality of our water.

Our test kits will allow you to test your water for lead levels at an industry level, with a consumer based efficiency and affordability.

Go check it out on amazon right here!