The Environmental Protection Agency has adopted new rules that will require water utilities to notify customers of the detection of lead concentrations over a certain threshold within 24 hours and be required to test supplies feeding schools and child-care centers.
The new regulations, signed by EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler on Monday, is the first major regulatory update of its kind in 30 years, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Lead service lines, the pipes connecting a water main system to individual homes and businesses have been an increasing concern, particularly in urban areas as the systems age. Newark, New Jersey, began a $120 million emergency replacement project in 2019.
Critics, however, decried the new rule claiming it doesn’t require utilities to replace the service lines more quickly.
In systems with lead over a particular level, utilities are required to replace a minimum of 3% of their lines made annually, less than the previous requirement of 7%. But the new rules eliminated exceptions for partial line replacements and other measures that critics claimed allowed utilities to avoid replacing the lines as quickly as intended.
“What I’ve tried to do…is set real numbers, real standards, real regulations that we can actually achieve that improve the environment,” the Journal quoted Wheeler as saying. “And this one is the perfect example. We can achieve the 3% replacement rate.”
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