President Joe Biden announced Thursday $3 billion toward identifying and replacing theĀ nationā€™s unsafeĀ leadĀ pipes,Ā a long-sought move to improve public health and clean drinking waterĀ that will be paidĀ for by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

Biden unveiled the new fundingĀ in North Carolina, a battleground state Democrats have lost to Donald Trump in the past two presidential electionsĀ but are feeling more bullish toward due to an abortion measure on the stateā€™s ballot this November.

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The Environmental Protection Agency will invest $3 billion in theĀ leadĀ pipe effort annually through 2026, Administrator Michael Regan told reporters. He said that nearly 50% of the funding will go to disadvantaged communities ā€“ and a fact sheet from the Biden administration noted that ā€œlead exposure disproportionately affects communities of color and low-income families.ā€

  • maniclucky@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    Iā€™ve seen this comment before. My counter: can you assure me that, for example, a new homeowner that doesnā€™t know better wonā€™t disturb the scale? They wonā€™t have a leaky faucet and mess with the pipes? Or something like Flint doesnā€™t happen ever again where necessary infrastructure changes necessitate disturbing the scale?

    This ā€˜solutionā€™ only ā€˜worksā€™ if you leave it completely alone and never touch it. So donā€™t get new appliances, never have a plumber fix some things, never update that water main thatā€™s gonna break down any time now. Itā€™s a very short sighted ā€˜solutionā€™ to the problem. Iā€™d hazard itā€™s a good argument for triage. Cities that need new infrastructure anyway go first kind of thing. But fobbing it off as ā€˜its fineā€™ isnā€™t ok.

    • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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      6 months ago

      I donā€™t think they were saying that we shouldnā€™t replace them, but rather that itā€™s unlikely to have a marked impact on things like religious adherence.

      For the most part, the concerning lead is in the municipal portion of the water supply, not in the areas a homeowner can disturb. (Not all of course, but it was largely phased out of home construction in the 30s). Replacing appliances or having a plumber work arenā€™t going to cause issues, and since the 80s having a service line or municipal water main break is a quick way to get non-lead installed.
      Lead doesnā€™t contaminate water super fast, the water needs to be in contact with it for a bit before concentrations start to rise to immediately actionable levels. Thatā€™s why the biggest source of concern for contamination are municipal water mains and home service lines: water doesnā€™t flow as quickly so it can accumulate more contamination, and thereā€™s a larger volume making it harder to flush the contaminated water. (If you have lead household plumbing, letting the water run for a minute or two will reduce the concentration below actionable levels. You canā€™t do that if the contamination is from the water main)

      You are entirely correct that pipe scale is not a ā€œsolutionā€.
      Thereā€™s no safe concentration of lead, which is why we need to replace all the pipes, a process that started in the 80s. Usually doing it as part of routine maintenance is fine because itā€™s not usually an emergency. The original plan to be done by the 2060s made a lot of assumptions about infrastructure maintenance being done on time, and people not making short sighted dumbfuck choices like the Flint emergency financial manager.

      So we need to fix it as quickly as is reasonable, but we donā€™t need to freak out over it, and we probably wonā€™t really see many marked changes like we did with leaded gas, just ā€œno huge catastropheā€, and average water lead levels dropping from 3 parts per billion to 1 or less.

    • Alexstarfire@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      I donā€™t see how a homeowner could affect pipes upstream like that. I have been under the assumption they are talking about replacing city/count/state pipes and not pipes that landowners are responsible for. The article doesnā€™t state either way.

      And there is no guarantee shit wonā€™t get fucked up. But actually listening to people when they say what you want to do will fuck up the pipes sure helps. So, the opposite of what Flint did.

      • maniclucky@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        The first time I saw the argument, it was in relation to pipes in oneā€™s home and Iā€™m not an expert on plumbing. I just felt the idea of ā€œleave it alone and itā€™ll be fineā€ is a really bad one and that it should be pushed back. I did acknowledge municipal pipes a bit, but my argument could use refinement.