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Contact Your Local Officials to Ensure Your Community Benefits from Recent Federal Investments in Water

With the passage of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law last year, there is cause to be excited yet focused and vocal in anticipation of a one-time, 5-year program (2022-2026) that will increase the amount of grants and low-interest loans available to local governments, especially those considered disadvantaged communities, to fund lead service line replacements and other large water storage, treatment, and distribution upgrades.

Applications for these “state revolving funds” (learn more here) are time-consuming, very detailed, and often beyond the scope of a local government’s capacity. And while these loans are low-interest, many communities have not been able to afford taking out loans to pay for aging water infrastructure since this program was created by a 1996 amendment to the Safe Drinking Water Act.

We encourage residents to engage NOW with their local officials on this issue because of the upcoming annual deadlines for funding consideration. Many localities have already completed the process, and usually the number of qualified applicants outnumbers the available annual funding. If it is too late this year for your community, it is the perfect time to begin the process for next year to ensure your community has access to safe, affordable drinking water for decades to come.

How can you begin the conversation with your local officials?

  • Ask if the local government has considered applying or has already applied to the state revolving fund for water infrastructure upgrades
  • If not, share your concerns over needed water infrastructure upgrades in your community, such as lead line replacement
  • Not sure if there are problems with your water infrastructure?  Talk to your community about their perspective and ask local officials what upgrades are or will be needed in the future.
  • Emphasize that this is a rare opportunity, time-sensitive, and time-consuming, but can deliver a lot of overdue assistance through both grants and/or loans

Let us know how your conversations go! Contact Kristen at 231-348-8200 x 9 or kristen@freshwaterfuture.org.

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Blog – Freshwater Future

https://freshwaterfuture.org/call-to-action/the-time-is-now-contact-your-local-officials-to-ensure-your-community-benefits-from-recent-federal-investments-in-water/

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In: Drinking Water, No Lead in Drinking Water, Public Health

A key factor in understanding lead risks for your family from drinking water is knowing whether the pipes that bring water to your home and the pipes and faucets inside your home contain lead.

If you are unsure about your plumbing, you can test your water for lead. Remember this is just a snapshot of the water at that time, and lead levels can fluctuate. Using the first and fifth liter testing methods can help determine if you have lead pipes inside and outside your home. 

If you know that you have a lead service line, all water in the home should be treated as a potential risk for high lead.  This means using the 4 step approach below.

Until you are able to determine the makeup of your pipes and faucets, you can still protect your family by assuming they are lead.  The following will help reduce your exposure to potential lead in drinking water:

  1. Flush water for five minutes after it has not been used for six or more hours.
  2. Install a filter on the kitchen sink to remove lead. (NSF/ANSI Standard 53) Remember to change the filter cartridge regularly.
  3. Only run cold water through your filter.  Use cold, filtered water for drinking, cooking, and preparing baby formula.
  4. Clean your faucet screens or aerators four times a year with an old toothbrush.

For a good overview of what testing results mean, check out this fact sheet.

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https://freshwaterfuture.org/drinking-water/does-lead-in-drinking-water-have-you-worried/

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In: Call to Action, Environmental Justice, No Lead in Drinking Water

Late Friday night on November 5th, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the bi-partisan $1 trillion Infrastructure Investment & Jobs Act. It had been lingering in the House as House leadership awaited the Senate’s passage of a package called the Build Back Better (BBB) Act, a $3.5 trillion spending plan. House leadership had wanted to pass both bills in the House together. 

Together the Infrastructure and BBB Acts would provide a substantial amount of funding for water projects, including grants to environmental justice and disadvantaged communities. The BBB also includes policy language to develop a permanent Low Income Housing Water Assistance Program in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, while also providing an additional $225 million for the program, ensuring financial assistance for people who are struggling to pay their water utility bill while the nation figures out how to make water rates affordable for everyone. Together these bills may provide the largest amount of water funding in U.S. history, but they fall short of some of the Biden administration’s promises, like $45 billion to replace all the lead lines in the U.S.  So what are in the Infrastructure and BBB Acts? See the table below to see some important water programs and their funding levels within the two Acts. Be sure to stay tuned though, BBB is still being negotiated, as you can see from the differences in the Sept and today columns, and hopefully will be passed before the end of November. 

 

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https://freshwaterfuture.org/call-to-action/bi-partisan-infrastructure-bill-and-build-back-better-act-what-does-this-mean-for-water-funding/

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In: Drinking Water, News, No Lead in Drinking Water

Actions to Address High Lead Levels in Drinking Water Due to Benton Harbor Residents’ Leadership


Last week 9,000 cases of water were delivered and distributed to Benton Harbor, Michigan residents by volunteers with the Benton Harbor Community Water Council. The water was provided by the state after Governor Whitmer signed an executive directive on October 14 to “coordinate all available state resources to deliver safe drinking water to residents in Benton Harbor,” where lead levels have been high for over three years. The Benton Harbor Community Water Council (BHCWC) and Freshwater Future believe this all-hands-on-deck approach provides the urgency and resources appropriate to the drinking water emergency occurring in Benton Harbor.

This action comes after years of struggle by Benton Harbor residents to be heard outside of their community in order to secure the resources needed to safeguard public health in the city from lead. Because no level of lead is safe, residents have needed alternative water, filters and educational information. Jill Ryan, Executive Director of Freshwater Future commented “we have been honored to work with residents and the BHCWC to ensure resources continued to be available in Benton Harbor to not only inform residents of the lead issue and how to protect their families, but also to work toward a resolution that returns the water system to providing safe drinking water, which is what every resident wants and should expect.” Freshwater Future supports the BHCWC in providing training, conducting community science, distributing educational information, conducting water testing, securing water filter stations in schools, and hosting community engagement.

Recently a collaboration of more than 20 community and environmental groups, led by the BHCWC, Great Lakes Environmental Law Center, People’s Water Board and National Resources Defense Council petitioned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to step in and help Benton Harbor. This action and the attention it garnered, finally pushed the struggle into national and state focus. We thank all of those groups for their leadership in this effort. Reverend Edward Pinkney, President and CEO of the BHCWC stated, “after years of struggle to raise awareness, I am happy we were able to work together to achieve this declaration. The BHCWC and our allies will be here to ensure that these statements are followed with action to safeguard the health of the people of Benton Harbor.”


After three years of being out of compliance with the water standards set by the state of Michigan at 15 ppb of lead, massive attention from the public and the government is creating new found support for the BHCWC. The group has championed the work the past three years to ensure their neighbors’ safety and their access to clean and safe water. Governor Whitmer’s announcement invokes a sense of urgency to pool resources from the state to provide clean and accessible water.

The BHCWC has been working tirelessly to support the community and provide education to its residents. While the state Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy recently stated there is “in general an improvement overall,” we have seen no evidence of such improvement. We look forward to working with the state to understand where improvements to the lead situation exist and where there are opportunities to improve further.

Reverend Pinkney requested the state, on behalf of the BHCWC, to tell residents directly that the water is unsafe to drink currently, and therefore they should utilize bottled water for drinking, cooking, and making baby formula. Finally, the state under pressure made the announcement that residents should use bottled water on October 21.

Residents working through the BHCWC have been steering the way information, water and filters are distributed in the community by listening to the needs of the community. As the resources provided by the government are certainly positive, the resources they provide will be most effective if they listen to and work with community groups like the BHCWC. Community groups are in the best position to continue to lead the good work from the residents’ perspective. Working together to alleviate water insecurity can be an example of how the government and community collaborate for the most effective outcome for the residents living with unsafe water.

The U.S. EPA is conducting a study starting the week of November 8 on faucet filters designed to remove lead to determine the efficacy for removing lead in Benton Harbor’s water. One-hundred homes will have water samples analyzed before and after filter use.

Benton Harbor residents have continued to be resilient in their efforts to ensure the safety of fellow residents’, and show no signs of giving up. “Benton Harbor residents have created solutions to educate and keep people safe in the community over the past three years, and those efforts should continue to lead this work. What will certainly help are the resources and the expertise the state can bring to bear on this problem,” said Benton Harbor City Commissioner MaryAlice Adams.

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https://freshwaterfuture.org/drinking-water/actions-to-address-high-lead-levels-in-drinking-water-due-to-benton-harbor-residents-leadership/

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In: Call to Action, Drinking Water, No Lead in Drinking Water, Public Health

In June, the Biden administration delayed the implementation of the Trump Administration’s federal lead and copper rule (LCR) until December 2021 to seek additional public comments and potentially revise the Trump Administration’s LCR. Along with the delay, the U.S. EPA launched a public commenting period, holding roundtable discussions in 10 locations across the U.S. They are also seeking public comments until July 30, 2021. 

While sign-on letters and action alerts are great, individual comments are more impactful and decision-makers look at these comments more than an action alert and sometimes a sign-on letter. Due to this and that the U.S. EPA is asking individuals to submit comments through a specific online portal, we are asking you to take a few minutes and use the talking points below to craft and submit your individual comments by going to https://www.regulations.gov/commenton/EPA-HQ-OW-2021-0255-0001. 

If you have any questions on LCR or the comment period, please email Jill Ryan, Executive Director at jill@freshwaterfuture.org. If you do submit comments, please let us know by emailing alana@freshwaterfuture.org so we may track how many people comment. Thank you.

TALKING POINTS
 

The American Medical Association and CDC have determined there is no safe level of lead in humans. Any standard put into place must be a health-based standard, which would be 0 ug/l. 

The proposed rule requires Consumer Confidence Reports (CCR) to tell customers how much lead is in the drinking water system servicing their house and where they can find the lead service line inventory. The CCR should also include information for customers about how to protect themselves from lead-in water if lead is above 0 ug/l, as well as an explanation of the proposed action level of 10 ug/l and exceedance level of 15 ug/l, particularly that these are not health-based levels, but for system corrosion control. This allows customers to make informed decisions about how they want to protect themselves from lead-in water.  

The proposed rule does not go far enough to protect students’ drinking water. For schools connected to public water systems, the proposed rule only requires elementary schools and daycares to test once every 5 years and secondary schools are only by request. Schools are informed about how to protect students through flushing and other mechanisms, but there is no requirement for the schools to do flushing, etc. For schools that own and operate their water system, the proposed rule requires the school to sample more frequently, but these schools are not necessarily equipped to interpret the results or address the changes necessary to protect students. Given that our next generation spends so much time at school, there should be stronger requirements for sampling and monitoring of all schools and daycares. If a school does have an exceedance, the school or daycare should be required to use filter stations, and those schools in impoverished communities should be given filter stations at no cost to the school or residents. Filters should be used until all fixtures and service lines are replaced and the water has been resampled and deemed to have no lead in the water. 

All lead service lines should be replaced, including public and private lead service lines, as well as those private and public lines servicing schools within 10 years. 

  • According to the AASA, The School Superintendents Association, if lead service line replacement is done correctly for all schools and daycares, special education costs associated with addressing the effects of lead on childhood development would be reduced and national student achievement would improve.

The rule should require any community, regardless of size, to replace their lead service lines and if that community is impoverished, grants be provided to replace the lead services lines. The proposed revisions allow small water systems serving less than 10,000 people, too much flexibility.  The proposed rule allows these small systems to either install or adjust corrosion control treatment, install and maintain point-of-use services like filters, replace all lead bearing plumbing, or replace lead service lines in 15 years, and once the system starts they cannot stop replacing the lines. Rather than giving this much flexibility, the end goal should be to replace all the lead service lines. 

Standardize language used by utilities to inform customers of the health impacts to children, pregnant women, and adults when lead in water reaches the action level of 10 ug/l or 15 ug/l exceedance level should be included in the CCR, even if below the action or exceedance level to allow customers to make informed decisions about how they may want to protect themselves if there is lead in their water. 

If the utilities are going to invest in inventorying service lines, utilities should make note of the materials of all the water service lines. 

The USEPA should collect data from the water utilities annually and make this publicly available in a centralized database. At least, the following data should be collected:

  • How many lead service lines, both private and public. The first annual report to the USEPA should include material makeup of the rest of the water service lines, but would not be required unless the line is replaced with a different material in subsequent years;  
  • How many public and private lead lines were replaced, the address of the replacement, and the material of the line replaced with; 
  • How many public and private lead service lines are left to replace; 
  • Details about rates are rising as a result of the lead service line replacement; and 
  • Number of customers that have gone into arrears due to the replacement of the line. 

Original Article

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https://freshwaterfuture.org/call-to-action/public-comment-period-for-lead-and-copper-rule-revisions/

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