President Biden has announced a plan to “strengthen its Lead and Copper Rule that would require water systems to replace lead service lines within 10 years."

The Biden administration has announced a proposal to “strengthen its Lead and Copper Rule that would require water systems to replace lead service lines within 10 years,” the White House said in a statement on Thursday.

According to the White House, more than 9.2 million American households connect to water through lead pipes and lead service lines and, due to “decades of inequitable infrastructure development and underinvestment,” many Americans are at risk of lead exposure.

“There is no safe level of exposure to lead, particularly for children, and eliminating lead exposure from the air, water, and homes is a crucial component of the Biden-Harris Administration’s historic commitment to advancing environmental justice,” the Biden administration said.

  • 7Sea_Sailor@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    7628·
    1 year ago

    Just another day on which I as a European am absolutely shocked how shit the quality of life in the US is.

    • EatYouWell@lemmy.world
      693·
      1 year ago

      Europe has lead pipes as well, buddy.

      They’re perfectly safe as long as idiots don’t change the water supply to one that’s more acidic without buffering the pH.

      Hell, England and Wales have nearly 3x more than the entire US.

      • bluGill@kbin.social
        251·
        1 year ago

        That isn’t perfectly safe. That is normally safe, but once in a while something will go wrong and they become unsafe.

        • Sylvartas@lemmy.world
          1·
          1 year ago

          If it goes wrong long enough after the pipes have been in service it’s barely an issue iirc because there is now a coat of corroded lead inside the pipes that does not cause lead poisoning

      • crystal@feddit.de
        22·
        1 year ago

        When people say europe they usually aren’t thinking of countries such as Russia, Turkey, or the UK.

    • JJROKCZ@lemmy.world
      141·
      1 year ago

      It’s worth noting that 9.2 million homes is an extremely small percentage of American homes and I’d say almost all of them are extremely rural homes or dying rural towns that just need relocated. Think of North Dakota as akin to the Siberian oblasts or northern Finland, neither get a lot of infrastructure care because no almost one is there. This is the Biden admin trying to look out for the little guy that’s been ignored the last century

        • JJROKCZ@lemmy.world
          1·
          1 year ago

          Agreed, the ISPs pissed away the billions they got in the early 2000s. It’s time to pony up another few billion but let the military do the work this time then hand the actually completed project to gouvernement ran ISPs.

          My dad is still paying frontier like $80 a month for 4mbps that doesn’t work half the time

          • EatYouWell@lemmy.world
            1·
            1 year ago

            Eh, it doesn’t need to be installed by the military, but it definitely needs to be a public works project.

            And if the telecoms push back, it’s time to start an audit on where that tax money went.

            But yeah, AT&T’s fiber trunk line runs 50ft from my mom’s front door, but they wont even put a dsl relay out there (it’s been 2 years away for the past 20 years)

            • JJROKCZ@lemmy.world
              1·
              1 year ago

              I only say the military because they’re answerable to the executive branch, the public ISPs are beholden only to shareholders who do not have the best interests of the public in mind. If given the opportunity the ISPs will squander it again and there’s nothing an after the fact audit will do about it, the military will at least complete the job even if it takes longer and is slightly over budget.

              And by military I mostly mean army Corp of engineers and whichever division wants to offer up its IT ops crew for the setup