Lawsuit Against EPA Lead Pipe Replacement Harms Us All

On October 16, 2024, after years of advocacy from many impacted communities around the country demanding the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) take steps to improve its outdated Lead and Copper Rule (LCR) of 1991, the agency released its final, revised version of the regulation. Named the Lead and Copper Rule Improvements (LCRI), this version is mandating the full removal of all lead service lines within 10 years. 

The EPA established the LCR 33 years ago to protect public health and reduce exposure to lead in drinking water. The rule required public water systems serving more than 50,000 people to survey their corrosion control systems and to obtain state approval for their systems by January 1, 1997. The EPA was setting a baseline, and then requiring regular monitoring of what water works are delivering to our taps.

However, by the early 2000s, national, state and local environmental justice networks declared the LCR as weak, antiquated and outlined overdue improvements. The LCR had highlighted a need for further requirements. In short, we learned that we had a long way to go to achieve safe, clean water for all of us.

After several years of advocacy by activists and environmental justice groups, the EPA finally released a much improved set of LCR guidelines in 2024. There have been several revisions in past years but none more promising than the recently released Lead Copper Rule Improvement (LCRI) . 

This progressive LCRI takes a more aggressive approach to improving water safety in our communities, requiring water systems to remove lead service lines in 10 years or less, lowering action levels for lead, increasing transparency and making it easier for the public to access and understand what is happening with our water. These are all changes that are long overdue.

In addition, the EPA, in its newly released LCRI, finally conceded to activists’ voices and advocacy groups’ demands to acknowledge that the action level of 10 ppb recommended by the EPA is not a health-protective level—only zero lead is safe. 

This is a historic acknowledgement. However, the LCRI can still be improved to meet standards that will protect public health. Nevertheless, we are finally on the right track. That is until the American Water Works Association (AWWA) decided to file a lawsuit challenging the LCRI.

AWWA is a powerful lobby group that represents tens of thousands of water utilities around the country. Founded in 1881 at Washington University in St. Louis, AWWA has represented the interest of governments and water utilities for a very long time.

Further, AWWA has been in opposition to community demands for improvements to the LCR after the LCR was implemented in 1991. AWWA also actively opposes community demands for transparency and infrastructural improvements, specifically they steadfastly oppose the removal of lead service lines in 10-years. Any organization that acts against the public interest should not have the support of Milwaukee Water Works.

Milwaukee Water Works is a member of AWWA, which is suing the EPA to reverse lead pipe replacement requirements. It is disgraceful that our city’s public water utility is a member of an organization that is, once again, compromising public health.

AWWA has put the interest of their organization above public health and they have saddled the economic cost of their negligence and greed on those who have the least power and capacity to fight back. Their influence remains hidden from public scrutiny, as all lobbyists do. They prefer to keep their activities hidden from us because they are working against us. AWWA has done more harm than good for communities harmed by the scourge of lead-in-water.

It is time for AWWA to stop misleading and misinforming the public about the safety of our tap water. Lead-in-water is destroying families and robbing future generations of a healthy life. The costs, the feasibility and the mandate to remove lead pipes in 10-years or less is justice for communities harmed by lead pipes tainting tap water with lead.

Robert Miranda is a longtime Milwaukee activist. He is currently a member of the Get The Lead Out Coalition Steering Committee and spokesperson for Freshwater For Life Action Coalition.