Lead in Drinking Water and the Race to Replace Service Lines
Millions of lead service lines still connect homes to water mains. After Flint, a national push — backed by new EPA rules — aims to rip them all out.
Lead rarely occurs in source water; it leaches in from lead service lines and plumbing as water travels to the tap. There is no safe level of lead exposure, particularly for children, in whom it can cause irreversible developmental harm.
The 2014 Flint, Michigan crisis — where a change in water source and a failure to control corrosion exposed an entire city to elevated lead — became a national symbol of infrastructure neglect and environmental injustice. Roughly 9 million lead service lines remain in use across the country.
The EPA's Lead and Copper Rule Improvements call for replacing most lead service lines within a decade, and federal infrastructure funding is helping cities inventory and remove them. Replacement is the only permanent fix; corrosion control is a stopgap.
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