President Biden has announced a plan to “strengthen its Lead and Copper Rule that would require water systems to replace lead service lines within 10 years."

The Biden administration has announced a proposal to “strengthen its Lead and Copper Rule that would require water systems to replace lead service lines within 10 years,” the White House said in a statement on Thursday.

According to the White House, more than 9.2 million American households connect to water through lead pipes and lead service lines and, due to “decades of inequitable infrastructure development and underinvestment,” many Americans are at risk of lead exposure.

“There is no safe level of exposure to lead, particularly for children, and eliminating lead exposure from the air, water, and homes is a crucial component of the Biden-Harris Administration’s historic commitment to advancing environmental justice,” the Biden administration said.

  • Wahots@pawb.social
    0·
    9 months ago

    Fuck yes. We have needed to get rid of that shit for awhile. I’d also love it if we converted over to metric at the same time, but I don’t think that’s as likely…

    • Asafum@feddit.nl
      0·
      9 months ago

      And it will be described as a Good Thing™

      Trump saved us from losing our heritage! We grew off of lead pipes and those damn liberals were going to strip us of that!! Lol I hate that this is an actual possibility.

  • MNByChoice@midwest.social
    0·
    9 months ago

    This is great. 10 years seems long, but it is a huge project. Glad it will be started soon.

    Edit: Aw shit. This is only a proposal. At least we are talking about it.

  • BigMacHole@lemm.ee
    0·
    9 months ago

    I would rather DRINK LEAD then to not be allowed to call a black person the N WORD! I’m a NOT RACIST REPUBLICAN!

  • ares35@kbin.social
    0·
    9 months ago

    my little town is replacing all the water mains… when the streets above them need repair or rebuilding. they’ve done two streets in the last ten years, each about 8-10 blocks long. they’ve got a long ways to go. 10 years ain’t nearly enough time unless someone is gonna pony-up a ton of cash.

    • bluGill@kbin.social
      0·
      9 months ago

      My town is putting pipes next to the road instead of under it. That way they can work on pipes without tearing out the road, and when working on the road they don’t have to worry about the pipes (as much - I assume they still have to run under)

  • doctorcrimson@lemmy.today
    0·
    9 months ago

    Imagine if the next GOP president threw this out just like Trump did to every Obama policy he could. I think one of the most damaging examples was when Trump shut down the federal de-radicalization programs that disproportionally affected white supremacist groups. It’s right up there with removing the ICE 72 hour holding limits.

  • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
    0·
    9 months ago

    Can you imagine if this turns out to be the thing that was needed to calm you lot down?

    In a manger new study (conducted decades ago) it turns out that Lead in your water/food/air is bad for you

  • d-RLY?@lemmy.ml
    0·
    9 months ago

    Key word is “proposal”, which will be used for the election. But will not be actually fought for, or if somehow makes it through will likely be gutted to give corps money and just retain the name. I am thinking it would be stopped just like all the bullshit was on technicalities that we never hear of except when shit that would help people is brought forward (the shit involving that stupid-ass parliamentarian a few years ago being a great example). And the mass public of liberals or otherwise the “um I really don’t care about politics” folks will just remember it was mentioned at some point and assume it was done. Just another failure of our larger problem of mass amnesia. Similar to how so many idiots voted for Biden over Bernie because they thought they both were for Medicare for All, since Biden had stated multiple times that “healthcare is a right”. Fuck him, his party, the Republicans, corpo media, and especially the capitalist ruling class that owns both parties!

  • Dra@lemmy.zip
    0·
    9 months ago

    This has been often speculated as being the cause of the “Stupid American” stereotype. Good decision

    • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
      0·
      9 months ago

      That seems implausible. Lead pipes are common pretty much everywhere and it’s usually not a problem due to a coating on the pipes.

      It’s just an issue in the US because there’s been a few notable examples of that coating being damaged and causing contamination, which creates political will to do the replacements that everyone is doing at an accelerated pace.

      Most places, in the US or not, just replace them during routine maintenance. The UK and Germany should have theirs replaced by 2100, if nothing comes up to make them accelerate the process.

      • Enkrod@feddit.de
        0·
        9 months ago

        This year Germany passed a law to completely remove all lead pipes until January 2026.

        But the allowed levels of lead in drinking water have already been lowered so much since 2013 (10 microgram per liter, this has been lowered again since to 5 microgram per liter) that any water that passed through a lead pipe cannot realistically fulfill the requirements, thus there are only extremely few households left with any lead in their pipes.

        Coating the pipes is not a way out of this, since Germany has expressly forbidden this as a way to renovate.

        • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
          0·
          9 months ago

          Oh, I’m not saying we should coat the pipes, I’m saying that it’s not a massive continuous crisis is because there is a coating on the pipes created by the water treatment.

          We definitely should replace all of them because that coating is too easy to damage and there’s no reason to take the risk, but “lead pipes” is unlikely to be a US specific health issue like was originally insinuated.

      • ryathal@sh.itjust.works
        0·
        9 months ago

        The US hasn’t been good about replacing pipes in general, there’s even a good amount that aren’t even documented in some areas.

      • n3m37h@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        0·
        9 months ago

        hydrofluorosilicic acid is the cause of all the problems with lead pipes. It is being used as a replacement for standard fluoride

  • spyd3r@sh.itjust.works
    0·
    9 months ago

    Shouldn’t states and cities be responsible for doing this, not the federal government? People in one state shouldn’t be paying for the failure of another state to provide necessary infrastructure.

  • DarkGamer@kbin.social
    0·
    9 months ago

    Huzzah! Another great move by the Biden administration that will probably be overlooked by most commenters, like his labor board appointments that led to the recent union resurgence were.