One step closer to getting lead out of our drinking water

72,808

Supporters spoke up in this action

Delivery to Environmental Protection Agency

Action ended on July 30, 2021

What Happens Next

Thank you to all who took action! We’re grateful for your support.

What Was At Stake

It’s 2024 — but millions of people across the country still drink water that passes through lead pipes, putting countless communities at risk of harmful lead contamination. After decades of community advocacy and lawsuits filed on behalf of multiple organizations and states, including Earthjustice clients, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has finally proposed changes to the Lead and Copper Rule (LCR), which regulates how water systems handle lead in water in according with the Safe Drinking Water Act.  But we need to keep the pressure up to make sure the final rule is as strong as possible. Urge the EPA to adopt provisions that will help remove lead from drinking water, and to strengthen the weaker parts of the rule.  

Lead service lines naturally corrode when water flows through them. This corrosion causes toxic lead to leach into our faucet water.  Exposure to low levels of lead presents significant health risks. Lead is especially dangerous for children, infants, and fetuses. Even in small amounts, it can cause permanent and irreversible harm to the central nervous system, resulting in learning difficulties, hearing and speech impediments, developmental delays, and other lifelong impairments. In adults, exposure can lead to cardiovascular disease, decreased kidney function, and miscarriage.  

And yet, even though Congress banned the installation of lead pipes in 1986, there are 9 to 12 million lead pipes in use according to EPA.  Water to millions of people is still delivered through them,– which disproportionately impacts communities of color – the same communities that also are more likely to be exposed to other pollutants. Thankfully, the new rule requires replacement of all lead pipelines in ten years for most water systems, lowers the levels at which water utilities must take other actions to address lead in drinking water, and requires improved water testing.  These are  welcome changes for communities dealing with lead in water.  

However, we need EPA to improve its final rule to ensure that the cities with the most lead service lines don’t receive lenient timelines – under the rule, places like Chicago would still have 40 years rather than 10 to replace all their lines. EPA should also ensure that those replacement lines are not made of plastics (and especially not PVC) – the creation of which devastates communities –  but instead made from copper. We also need to push EPA to require utilities to pay for lead service line replacement, so that lower wealth families dealing with exposure don’t get stuck with toxic lead lines while affluent communities get safe water.  

Finally, it is not just families in homes dealing with this crisis: children in schools are exposed to lead contamination because the water infrastructure in many schools and childcare centers is decades old and in desperate need of safe, lead-free pipes and fixtures. This is why it is crucial for EPA’s rule to focus on the installation of filters to prevent our kids from being exposed to lead at school.    

Urge the EPA to be bold and quickly finalize a stronger rule that will fulfill this administration’s goal of removing all lead service lines in America in ten years, and do so without throwing low-wealth communities under the bus. Urge EPA to strengthen the weaker parts of this rule. 

A lead pipe is shown after being replaced by a copper water supply line to a home in Flint, Mich., July 20, 2018. The Environmental Protection Agency will soon strengthen lead in drinking water regulations. (Paul Sancya / AP)
A lead pipe is shown after being replaced by a copper water supply line to a home in Flint, Mich., July 20, 2018. The Environmental Protection Agency will soon strengthen lead in drinking water regulations. (Paul Sancya / AP)

Your Actions Matter

Your messages make a difference, even if we have leaders who don't want to listen. Here's why.

You level the playing field.

Elected officials pay attention when they see that we are paying attention. Read more.

They may be hearing from industry lobbyists left and right, but hearing the stories of their constituents — that’s your power.

Our legislators serve at the pleasure of the people who gave them their job — you.

Make sure your elected officials know whose community and whose values they represent. When you contact your elected official, you’re putting a face and a name on an issue.

Whether or not you voted for them, they work for you, for the duration of their term.

Make sure your elected officials know whose community and whose values they represent. (Find your local, state, and federal elected officials.)

Your action is with us in court.

If a federal agency finalizes a harmful action, the record of public comments provides a basis for bringing them into court. Read more.

Throughout each of the public comment periods we alert you to, Earthjustice’s attorneys are researching and writing in-depth, technical comments to submit — detailing how the regulation could and should be stronger to protect the environment, our communities, and our planet.

We need you to join us — your specific experiences, knowledge, and voice are crucial to add to the Administrative Record through the comment periods.

Lawsuits we file that challenge weak or harmful federal regulations rely on what was submitted during the comment period. The court can only look at documents that are in the Administrative Record — including the public comments — to decide if the agency did something improper.

Your actions aid our litigation. Taking action and submitting comments during a comment period is substantively important.

It’s the law.

Federal agencies must pause what they’re doing and ask for — and consider — your comment. Read more.

Many of us may have never heard of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), but laws like these require our government to ask the public to weigh in before agencies adopt or change regulations.

Regulations essentially describe how federal agencies will carry out laws — including decisions that could undermine science, or weaken safeguards on public health.

Public comments are collected at various points throughout the federal government’s rulemaking process, including when a regulation is proposed and finalized. (Learn about the rulemaking process.) These comments become part of the official, legal public record — the “Administrative Record.”

When the public responds with a huge outpouring of support for environmental protections, these individual messages collectively undercut politicians' attempts to claim otherwise.

What this means is each of us can take a role in shaping the rules our government creates — and ensuring those rules are fair and effective.