Removing Lead Laterals - Still a Pipe Dream?
This is a repost of an article originally published by the Get The Lead Out Coalition. Their mission is to act as the frontline community oversight group to monitor the removal of lead plumbing in Milwaukee. They encourage everyone to call your alderperson and talk to them about how important it is that all of our neighbors have access to clean and healthy water.
If you watched the short docu-campaign video from More Perfect Union, you saw Mandela Barnes walk us through the work being done in Milwaukee to remove dangerous lead pipes using funds from the Biden Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. It’s a little early for a victory lap, especially when the video glosses over the fact that in the ten years since Flint made lead tainted water national news, Democrats have been in control of the City of Milwaukee, the whole time. These same Democrats are breaking their arms patting themselves on the back for using Biden’s money to remove the lead pipes. But when it was our own money, city leaders were content to let our children risk exposure for 70 more years.
Since Flint, Get the Lead Out, a grassroots coalition of many partner organizations throughout the city of Milwaukee, has called upon city leaders to remove lead laterals at no cost to homeowners. The mission of our coalition is simple: stop harming our citizens with lead pipes that the city forced residents to use in the first place.
While we believe that anything that helps get these poison pipes out of our infrastructure is good, this mockumentary attempts to put a happy spin on what has been a disastrously slow removal process, while conveniently ignoring the role city leaders played in putting those lead pipes into our communities in the first place. There is no attempt in this film at all to show the incompetence of city leaders in failing to meet their own ridiculous timeline of 70 years to remove 70,000 lead laterals. Frontline groups have been begging city leaders, including ones currently sitting in their city hall offices, to hasten the timeline of removal from 70 years to 10 years or less. That call has been ignored till now.
The distribution of Biden Infrastructure funds comes with some directives, including the requirement that cities like Milwaukee remove their lead laterals. City leaders have denied residents any infrastructure improvements for so long, and are only acting now because there is a federal mandate to do so, and funding to pay the bill, which no one in the city leadership was willing to do for their own residents. After demands for action went unheeded, we fully expect Mayor Johnson to laud this new ten year removal plan at the next State of the City Address: “Look at how I am graciously listening to you now that the feds have said I have to do it anyway!” Do not be lulled, we need to keep our eye on the prize, which is removing the lead laterals in ten years or less.
Let’s not forget that for the past ten years, Get The Lead Out and other frontline groups have been saying that we must do whatever it takes to get the lead out in ten years or less. Now that we’re finally all on the same page, we commend COLE for being able to finesse that line between government and public service, but for the rest of us we encourage wariness of the city’s commitment to this project. Be suspicious. The city put these poison pipes here, the city knew they were there for over one hundred years, and the city has declined to truly address the problem year after year. They are being made to do it now. By a fortuitous turn of events, namely the convenient timing of the current election cycle, Milwaukee finally has the money to do this work, and we intend to make sure the work gets done!
One thing that the Get the Lead Out coalition has advocated for is public, transparent community oversight of the lead removal process, because we do not believe a leopard changes its spots. City leaders have demonstrated their ability to shrink away from the responsibilities at the first opportune moment. Milwaukee leaders have openly ignored this problem for ten years. Suddenly they discovered it is popular to come out against poisoning children, but only if they don’t have to pay for it. A lot can change in ten years, so if we do not maintain the pressure on whoever is in city hall, the political will to actually follow through on this removal program may disappear before our eyes.
We believe in robust public oversight of city projects. Citizens should be able to go and see exactly what people are up to, so we can hold them publicly accountable. Maybe you never want to attend a lead lateral removal committee meeting, but some of us do, and take seriously our role as watchdogs of the public good. Community oversight is the way that we let our elected officials know that they work for us, and no matter what, we want these lead pipes out in ten years or less. It is getting harder and harder for communities to practice oversight over the officials we put in charge of handling critical public goods and services, and we need to change that. We call on city leaders to facilitate more public oversight of public services.
Removing lead laterals should not be a partisan issue, and we intend to continue holding the city accountable to the public interest through grassroots, frontline community organizing regardless of which party benefits from our attention. If you are interested in getting involved with the Get The Lead Out coalition, please reach out to us. Click here to email the common council to let them know that you stand with children and families and to demand action. We encourage you to call your alderperson and talk to them about how important it is that all of our neighbors have access to clean and healthy water: click here to find their number. You can simply say, “I support the city’s plan to remove lead laterals in ten years or less. Can you tell me what your stance on this issue is?” If you have the time, let us know what they say. You can read an additional article from the Get the Lead Out Coalition detailing the history of lead pipes in Milwaukee.