EPA Sends $3 Billion to States for Lead Water Pipe Replacement

The EPA is making $3 billion from the bipartisan infrastructure law available to states to replace lead drinking water pipes, the White House announced Thursday.

The funding is part of $15 billion Congress provided for lead service line replacement in annual installments through 2026. The money is being distributed by states through the Environmental Protection Agency’s Drinking Water State Revolving Fund.

The EPA expects the funding to help replace 1.7 million lead pipes across the US.

“Lead was the go-to material for the service lines that deliver drinking water to our homes,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan told reporters Wednesday. But lead pipes were found to contribute to unsafe levels of lead in the water, and EPA found that there is “absolutely no safe level of lead exposure.”

Every state is set to receive money in the 2024 tranche of funding led by Illinois, which will receive more than $240 million, or 8.41%, and Florida, which is set to receive nearly $229 million, or 7.98%.

The EPA also said it would publish a memo Thursday that will help states use infrastructure dollars and other funding to reduce lead exposure, including establishing best practices for the use of the funding.

Utilities are racing to meet an Oct. 16 deadline to inventory all their lead pipes under the Trump-era Lead and Copper Rule, which remains in effect.

The new round of infrastructure money will help states expedite lead service line replacement, which may be further accelerated under the EPA’s proposed update to the Lead and Copper Rule, which would force utilities to replace all their lead pipes within a decade.

The proposal, the Lead and Copper Rule Improvements, or LCRI, would require water utilities to replace 10% of their lead service lines annually over 10 years to avoid contaminating drinking water with lead.

EPA officials said Wednesday that the LCRI is on track to be finalized sometime before October.

The LCRI would replace the Trump-era rule, which calls for replacing just 3% of lead pipes each year.