Kansas and Missouri have 256,000 lead pipes. EPA wants them removed within 10 years

The EPA announced a proposed update to the lead and copper rule strengthening President Joe Biden’s earlier goal of eradicating lead pipes.
Utilities in Kansas and Missouri would have to pull hundreds of thousands of lead pipes out of the ground within 10 years under a proposed rule the Environmental Protection Agency announced Thursday.

The EPA announced a proposed update to the lead and copper rule strengthening President Joe Biden’s earlier goal of eradicating lead pipes. The proposed rule also would lower the limit on lead in water by one-third.

“Lead in drinking water is a generational public health issue, and EPA’s proposal will accelerate progress towards President Biden’s goal of replacing every lead pipe across America once and for all,” EPA administrator Michael Regan said in a news release.

For much of the 20th Century, utilities were permitted to install lead service lines, the pipes that carry water from water mains under the street into homes. The EPA banned them in 1986, but utilities have never been required to remove existing pipes.

In fact, some utility companies don’t know where the remaining lead service lines are.

Estimates as to how many remain vary widely. The EPA estimates Missouri has 202,112 remaining lead service lines while the environmental nonprofit the Natural Resources Defense Council estimates more than 330,000.