LEILA FADEL, HOST:
There are some nine million homes across the U.S. getting water through lead pipes.
A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
And now the Environmental Protection Agency says those pipes need to come out.
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MICHAEL REGAN: The science has been clear for decades. There is no safe level of lead in our drinking water.
MARTÍNEZ: That's EPA administrator Michael Regan. He says lead is harmful, especially to children.
FADEL: NPR's Pien Huang has been following this story, and she joins us now. Hi, Pien.
PIEN HUANG, BYLINE: Hey, Leila.
FADEL: OK, so I got to admit - I was kind of surprised this wasn't already a rule. What is the EPCA saying about it?
HUANG: Yeah, you would think, right? I mean, it's definitely something...
FADEL: Yeah.
HUANG: ...That water advocates have been fighting for for many, many years now. And the main thing about this rule is that for the first time on the federal level, it requires most water systems to replace all their lead pipes within 10 years. Now, Leila, this is a problem with a long history, but it got a lot of attention 10 years ago with the Flint water crisis in Michigan. And there, there was a change in the water chemistry that caused old pipes to leach high amounts of lead into the drinking water. And since then, some cities and states have actually already been swapping out those lead pipes for copper.
FADEL: Right. It was clear even back then that it wasn't just a problem in Flint. Are there parts of the country that are more likely to rely on lead pipes?
HUANG: Yeah, places with homes that were built before 1986. That's the year that Congress banned lead pipes, but the ones that were already in the ground were allowed to stay there - until now. So there are lead pipes in every state, but some have more than others. Those include Illinois, Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York and New Jersey. All of those states have over half a million lead pipes.
FADEL: Wow. So that's a lot of pipes. They're going to have to replace all those in 10 years?
HUANG: Yeah. It is a lot of pipes. And for the most part, they will have to, but there are some interesting exceptions. So Chicago, for instance, has the most lead pipes out of any city - around 400,000 in Chicago alone - and that's because they actually required lead pipes there until they were banned. So when this rule was first proposed, Chicago got a pretty big exemption - something like 40-50 years to replace all their pipes, 'cause they just had too many of them. And a lot of advocates pushed back on that. They said it's way too long. That's generations more people growing up with lead pipes. So in the final rule, the EPA has tightened that up. Now, instead of 40 years, they have more like 20-25. I talked with Brenda Santoyo, and she's a water justice advocate in Chicago.
BRENDA SANTOYO: It's definitely progress. I think that, like, the city, the state, should take, like, their own measures to try to speed up that process as much as they can. We also don't want our water systems to be set up for failure, for them to take shortcuts.
HUANG: Yeah. she says that the timeline seems reasonable, so long as families are able to protect themselves in the meantime.
FADEL: Yeah. I mean, even 10 more years seems like a long time to be drinking water that might have lead in it. So what can families do to protect themselves?
HUANG: Yeah. Well, step one is figuring out whether they have a lead service line. The service line is the pipe that brings tap water into your house, and that would be the most likely culprit. If you can see that line, you can scratch it with a coin, try a magnet on it. There's some guidance online that can help you figure out if it's made of lead, copper or coated steel. And in case you're wondering - if it's easy to scratch and a magnet does not stick to it, those are some of the signs that it could be lead. They can also test their water for lead. There are some water districts out there that offer free water testing, so they can check for that. And here's the thing - even if there is lead in the water, common home filters can take them out, so pitcher filters, faucet filters that are certified to remove lead. All these are really great solutions until the lead pipes themselves get eliminated.
FADEL: That's NPR health correspondent Pien Huang. Thank you.
HUANG: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARC DE SOLEIL'S "VOLUNTARY EXILE") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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