Cities nationwide risk problems similar to the lead found in the Washington area’s water supply unless they replace old pipelines, according to water-purification experts.
The nation’s aging infrastructure is leaching lead from pipes in old buildings into municipal water supplies, creating a health hazard that is difficult for government to eliminate, said Ralph McCarter, spokesman for the National Rural Water Association.
“If you go into an old house, it’s impractical to take the old piping out of the walls,” Mr. McCarter said. “Who wants to tear up their kitchen or basement to take the pipes out of the walls? The cost of doing that is really prohibitive.”
He is scheduled to testify today before the House Transportation and Infrastructure water resources and environment subcommittee during a hearing on water infrastructure.
A 1999 Environmental Protection Agency survey estimated the nation’s drinking-water systems need repairs and upgrades of $150 billion over 20 years.
Nevertheless, EPA officials say the nation’s water systems are safe.
“High lead levels are not a pervasive problem,” said Cathy Milbourn, EPA spokeswoman.
All but about 3 percent of public pipelines containing lead have been replaced with nontoxic materials, according to the American Water Works Association, a water-treatment industry scientific and educational group.
Pipes with lead solder on the fittings were banned by the 1986 Safe Drinking Water Act.
Nevertheless, some buildings built before 1986 are leaking lead into water systems as they age.
“Unfortunately, Washington, D.C., does not have a corner on that market,” Mr. McCarter said.
Resulting health problems can include brain damage, high blood pressure and risk of miscarriage, according to some scientific reports.
Pregnant women and children age 6 and younger are the only populations at risk from lead in the District’s drinking water, Dr. Thomas Calhoun, the D.C. Health Department’s Emergency Health and Medical Services medical director, said last month.
Jerry N. Johnson, general manager of the D.C. Water and Sewer Authority (WASA), described the cost to repair the nation’s water systems as “enormous” in testimony he prepared to deliver to Congress today.
WASA would need to spend $300 million to $350 million to replace its pipelines containing lead, he said. It would cost D.C. residents $6 to $7 a month, he told the D.C. Council in February.
“Age is the primary reason we are confronted with such high estimates of infrastructure-spending needs,” Mr. Johnson said in his congressional remarks.
The EPA requires utilities to replace pipelines containing lead anytime water running through them contains more than 15 parts per billion of lead.
More than two-thirds of the approximately 6,000 homes tested in Washington had lead levels exceeding the standard, some as high as 83 parts per billion.
Howard Neukrug, spokes-man for the American Water Works Association, plans to testify that property law restrictions make the replacement difficult.
Some water lines that private property owners share with utilities leak lead into the public systems.
“A public water system has no legal means to compel a property owner to replace a lead service line or portion of a lead service line,” Mr. Neukrug’s prepared testimony says.
David G. Wallace, mayor of Sugar Land, Texas, who will represent the U.S. Conference of Mayors, plans to ask Congress to lift a cap on tax-exempt municipal bonds to pay for water system projects.
The Conference of Mayors says the bonds would attract private investors to make up the funding shortfall.
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