New federal rules went into effect last month that require utilities to replace all water service lines made out of lead within the next decade.
That will be a big job for Ohio; the EPA says the state has nearly 750,000 of those lines here, the third highest number of any U.S. state. Even Cincinnati, which has a significant head start, could struggle to meet the challenge.
Ahead of the game
Crews from Greater Cincinnati Water Works have been replacing lead and other potentially toxic water pipes since 2016.
“Brass is yellow, copper is bronze or brown, galvanized [steel] is gray, lead is silver, or it can be gray too,” explains crew leader Dwayne Wallace Sr., standing in a hole about five feet deep outside a single-family home in Cincinnati. Anything except copper has to be removed and replaced with a shiny new copper pipe.
There are nearly 45,000 lead service lines in Cincinnati, according to the public utility’s records. Executive Director Cathy Bailey says they’ve already replaced more than 6,000.
“We finally got to a point where we're doing about 1,200 per year,” Bailey said. “We thought that was like a big deal, a good thing, that we were getting to 1,200. But now we realize we need to get to 3,600. And so there's going to be a significant ramp up to that.”
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Bailey says Cincinnati started replacing lead lines when the Flint, Michigan water crisis made national news.
“We didn't wait for anyone to tell us that you have to do this because of a regulation,” she said. “We noticed that it was the right thing to do for our community from the beginning, and we made sure that our city leaders understood that, and they supported us.”
Most of the lead lines still left in Cincinnati are privately-owned by homeowners, which means they have to give permission for Water Works to replace it. Community engagement and awareness is one area where Bailey says the experience the city gained in the last eight years is especially valuable.
“There's a social and environmental justice aspect of this too, where a lot of these lead service lines still remain in neighborhoods that are older neighborhoods, that have potentially low income or disadvantaged communities,” Bailey said.
A nationwide health risk
Bailey recently served as a national consultant to the EPA, helping other U.S. cities establish their own lead line replacement programs. Many in Ohio have a long way to go: Columbus has at least 25,000 leadlines, and in Cleveland, the number is more than 230,000, according to the EPA.
(Learn more in this report about how the EPA estimates the number of lead lines, which involves both actual reporting from utilities and an estimate of how many lines of unknown material are likely to be made of lead.)
While the risk of lead poisoning from water lines is relatively low compared to lead-based paint, experts say there is no safe level of lead.
“We’re worried mostly about how lead affects the developing body, particularly the brain,” said Dr. Nicholas Newman, director of the Environmental Health and Lead Clinic at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital.
Dr. Newman says lead poisoning’s impact on early childhood development makes it dangerous.
“Although the exposure might happen early in life, the effects continue through the whole rest of your life – because the brain only develops once,” he said. “You can’t really go back and click the undo button.”
Rep. Dontavius Jarrells of Columbus knows that all too well.
“I had lead poisoning as a child,” he said. “I had to go in and out of the hospital, had to get speech pathology classes from kindergarten to fifth grade. Really, it is a silent, silent killer of your brain and of your body.”
Proposed legislation
Rep. Jarrells has introduced state legislation that would impose tighter deadlines on cities like Cleveland, because the new federal rule allows for extensions that could leave lead lines in place for decades.
“A lot of families could inadvertently be poisoning their selves and the community as a whole, simply because of the lack of knowledge, but also because we don't have policies yet that actually remove the lead lines once for all around the state,” he said.
Replacing lead lines once and for all will require a lot of funding. While some analysts argue it’ll be an economic boon in the long-term, the upfront costs are steep: it’s estimated to cost $200 million in Cincinnati alone.
Rep. Jarrells says his proposed bill doesn’t include any funding, but he hopes the state legislature will add money for lead service line removal in the next state budget.
“I believe that families deserve safe, clean drinking water,” he said. “Everything that we're doing in this bill is getting us to that end, so that no family ever has to be poisoned from lead ever again.”
Until then, Ohio cities will have to figure out how to meet the federal deadline on their own.
Learn more:
How to tell what material your water line is made of: https://www.epa.gov/ground-water-and-drinking-water/protect-your-tap-quick-check-lead-0
How to reduce lead in your water: https://www.epa.gov/ground-water-and-drinking-water/basic-information-about-lead-drinking-water#reducehome
Resources from the Ohio Department of Health on lead poisoning: https://odh.ohio.gov/know-our-programs/childhood-lead-poisoning
