OPINION:
In his State of the Union address, President Biden called attention to America’s tap water problem.
“Look, we’re also replacing poisonous lead pipes that go into 10 million homes in America. Four hundred thousand schools and child care centers, so every child in America, every child in America can drink the water instead of having permanent damage to their brain,” the president said.
He’s right. In cities across the country, we’ve diminished the potential of future generations by exposing young children to lead-laced tap water. The Environmental Protection Agency notes that no level of lead is safe. Lead exposure in children can stunt development, leading to learning disabilities and behavioral issues.
Yet lead pipes carry water to hallway drinking fountains in schools throughout America.
All Americans likely recall the lead travesty that occurred in Flint, Michigan. But this problem isn’t only in Flint. It’s everywhere. According to Environment America, more than 70% of schools testing for lead in states across the nation have confirmed instances of lead contamination.
As the president noted, his administration is working to rid schools of lead pipes. Still, the funding allocated in the infrastructure package is nowhere near enough funding to replace all lead pipes. Only $15 billion was earmarked for the effort, but a total replacement of lead pipes in the United States would cost upward of $60 billion.
And lead isn’t the only issue facing our tap water supply.
According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, one water main breaks every two minutes in the United States. There were at least 953 documented boil water advisories, according to the database at IsTapWaterSafe.com (my former company collected the data). When a water main breaks, contaminants such as E. coli can rush into the water supply, and the system can lose pressure.
Nearby residents can be without water for just a few hours — or for years, as we’ve seen in Jackson, Mississippi, and Keystone, West Virginia.
PFAS, otherwise known as forever chemicals, have also infiltrated the tap water supplies in many states. These chemicals have been linked to cancers and other serious medical conditions.
Our water supply isn’t secure or free of potentially harmful pathogens. But in cities nationwide, some lawmakers are trying to ban purified bottled water.
Consider Hawaii. The state spent the better half of the past year attempting to clean jet fuel out of the water supply after a leak at a military base left many sick and 93,000 without water. But lawmakers there are considering banning bottled water rather than promoting recycling. This legislation is being pursued despite the evidence showing that a plastic bottle is more environmentally sound than glass or aluminum containers, according to studies from the Danish Environmental Protection Agency and McKinsey and Co.
South Lake Tahoe, California, is in a similar position. That city is encouraging people to drink tap water after banning bottled water. Still, the region has struggled with many water main breaks in recent years, along with lead contamination in Lake Tahoe. Moreover, the same City Council that voted to ban plastic bottles also voted to commission a study on how to respond to the PFAS in the city’s water supply.
Perhaps people in South Lake Tahoe and Hawaii should consider how the bottle bans have gone in Cape Cod. Several cities passed plastic bottle bans during the pandemic. But within a few years, at least six cities have repealed the bans because they made it too difficult and expensive to obtain purified water.
There’s a reason the Federal Emergency Management Agency urges families to stockpile one gallon of water per person per day in the event of a service disruption. Our tap water system is not impenetrable. In some cities, it’s not even reliable.
Mr. Biden’s effort to reduce lead in pipes is an important initiative. But it’s a drop in the bucket of what needs to be done before Americans feel confident in the safety of their tap water supply. In the meantime, environmental activists should stop making it harder for families to protect themselves while creating bigger environmental problems than any they assume to solve.
• Rick Berman is president of RBB Strategies LLC.
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