WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced the first major update to the agency’s Lead and Copper Rule (LCR) in nearly 30 years.
“This new Lead and Copper Rule will protect children and families from exposure to lead in drinking water,” said EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler. “For the first time in nearly thirty years, this action incorporates best practices and strengthens every aspect of the rule, including closing loopholes, accelerating the real world pace of lead service line replacement, and ensuring that lead pipes will be replaced in their entirety.”
EPA’s new Lead and Copper Rule better protects children and communities from the risks of lead exposure by testing drinking water at elementary schools and child care facilities, getting the lead out of our nation’s drinking water, and empowering communities through information. Improvements under the new rule include:
- Using science-based testing to better locate elevated levels of lead in drinking water.
- Establishing a trigger level to jumpstart mitigation earlier and in more communities.
- Driving more and complete lead service line replacements.
- For the first time, requiring testing in elementary schools and child care facilities.
- Requiring water systems to identify and make public the locations of lead service lines.
“AWWA [is committed] to the removal of all lead service lines in their entirety,” American Water Works Association President Melissa Elliott said in a statement following the announcement. “The first step in accomplishing that task is the development of lead inventories in every community, and we enthusiastically support the inclusion of that requirement in the final rule. EPA reports that lead action level exceedances today among large systems are 90-percent lower than they were when the rule was first introduced in 1991. Still, the surest way to protect against lead in water is to remove the sources of lead. Water utilities will continue to be leaders in this monumental task, though removing lead service lines will require time and collaboration with property owners, manufacturers, state regulators, federal agencies, financing authorities, plumbers, code officials, local government and many others.”
