The Environmental Protection Agency has plans to strengthen drinking water lead regulations and tighten a rule that failed to prevent crises in cities like Flint, Michigan.
About four decades ago, when the Environmental Protection Agency was first trying to figure out what to do about lead in drinking water, Ronnie Levin quantified its damage: Roughly 40 million people drank water with dangerous levels of lead, degrading the intelligence of thousands of kids. But new regulations were going to be costly and complicated.
Now, the EPA is on the eve of strengthening them. Decades after officials banned lead in gasoline for new cars and stopped the sale of lead paint — huge steps toward eliminating significant sources of lead exposure to the public — there are still an estimated 500,000 U.S. children with levels of lead in their blood that are considered high, and experts say lead in drinking water is an important source.
Before the Flint crisis erupted in 2014, lead had faded as a public health priority, 'as if we had finished the lead problem in this country,' the CDC's Bernstein said. But Flint brought renewed attention to the problem, and new investment in lead poisoning prevention, he said. Other crises erupted in 2016 in Newark, New Jersey, and in 2018 in Benton Harbor, Michigan.
Newark and Benton Harbor eventually received a more energetic official response. Lead pipes in both cities were rapidly removed and lead levels dropped. But the events took a heavy toll. Residents in Benton Harbor, where more than 40% live in poverty, idled their cars at water distribution sites waiting for them to open, worried that free supplies would run out. Parents, facing horrible headlines about lead’s ability to damage the brain, worried whether their kid’s future had been stunted.
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