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Biden announces 10-year deadline to remove all lead pipes nationwide (www.cbsnews.com)

submitted 1 month ago by TheTechnician27@lemmy.world to c/upliftingnews@lemmy.world

27 comments fedilink hide all child comments

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/20665840

President Biden on Tuesday announced $2.6 billion in funding to replace all lead pipes in the United States as part of a new EPA rule that will require lead pipes to be identified and replaced within 10 years using the new funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act.

all 34 comments

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[–] DavidGarcia@feddit.nl 32 points 1 month ago (1 children)

what's next? remove lead acetate from wine? smh this is tyranny

[–] TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 22 points 1 month ago

You can pry my wine sweetener from my cold, dead, neurologically damaged hands.

[–] HipsterTenZero@dormi.zone 23 points 1 month ago (2 children)

WE STILL HAVE LEAD PIPES???

[–] ricecake@sh.itjust.works 9 points 1 month ago

Yup, it's not ideal.
For slight contextualization on why it's not the worst: for the most part, the lead pipes have a layer of scale (material from water reacting with the pipe) that keeps lead out of the water.
We stopped installing new lead pipes quite a while ago, and the program to fully phase them out was started in the 90s. This was relatively routine for developed countries, as lead pipes were extremely common across the world.

After Flint, it became apparent that this wasn't the "slow fix" problem everyone thought after we saw how easily it could go to full "problem". So everyone accelerated the timeline.

So while it's definitely a problem, it's not an entirely novel or extremely critical problem.

[–] HurlingDurling@lemmy.world 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Yep, most old houses that haven't updated their plumbing do. If it ain't broke don't fix it mentality.

[–] olsonexi@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

the question is why isn't "made of literal poison" considered "broke" for something that carries drinking water?

[–] HurlingDurling@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

I don't have the answer to that, but I can only assume it's like "well, it hasn't killed us and it cost more money that we can pay to fix it"

[–] Zannsolo@lemmy.world 10 points 1 month ago (1 children)

LIBERAL PLOT TO GET RID OF CONSERVITIVES!!! WE CANT TOLLERATE THIS DEEP STATE LIBERAL BIG GOVERNMENT INTERFERENCE IN OUR HOMES. IF LEAD WAS SO BAD WHY WOULD THEY SELL MINERAL WATER, CHECKMATE LIBTARDS. /s

[–] TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

WHY DOES LIBERAL COMMUNIST TIM WALZ HATE OUR PLUMBERS?!

[–] Mongostein@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 month ago

Actually, this is good news for plumbers. Biden’s obviously being controlled by the deep plumb.

[–] JusticeForPorygon@lemmy.world 10 points 1 month ago

bUt ThE eCoNoMy?!?!?

[–] ProbablyBaysean@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Lead culinary water pipes (or lead soldier) is a problem, but lead shower pans (that affect the sewer water) are the preference in many USA cities.

[–] werefreeatlast@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

We need lead for war?

[–] thisguy1092@lemmy.world -5 points 1 month ago

I’m a republican and I love this.

[+] givesomefucks@lemmy.world -18 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (3 children)

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[–] TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 36 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

It's not supposed to cover the entire thing. Actual estimates for the whole thing are at $20 to $30 billion. This is just the latest round of funding for the pipe replacement, not the entire thing. The Biden administration has secured $15 billion in funding for lead pipe replacement to date.

The article posted above reads: "The $2.6 billion is the latest disbursement by the Biden administration for lead pipes in the $50 billion from the 2021 infrastructure law for drinking water and wastewater infrastructure." But you decided to read one paragraph in (which could I guess be further than average) and write a long-winded outraged comment that it isn't enough.

[+] givesomefucks@lemmy.world -34 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

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[–] TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 37 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I don't support Israel's genocide in Gaza either or the Biden administration's ongoing support of it (I think all of that military aid should be going to Ukraine instead, for starters), but you really just shitted up the thread by deciding that reading past the first paragraph was too hard, went off on an unrelated whataboutism tangent, and then when it was pointed out you were wrong, you decided to be a snarky, immature jackass about it instead of just saying "oh, okay".

[+] givesomefucks@lemmy.world -31 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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[+] TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 27 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

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[+] givesomefucks@lemmy.world -24 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

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[–] TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 18 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Oh, I think I understand now: you think that $15 billion is all there is and ever can be because you don't understand that "a decade" is 10 years and consequently that the EPA has time to get more funding for this over a period of – again – 10 years.

Since I know reading is hard for you, here's something to enhance your comprehension of that $15 billion figure: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/so_far

Edit: and you never answered: where on god's green Earth is 700 million coming from? Milwaukee? Because that's one city, and cities have different amounts of lead pipes.

[–] _bcron_@lemmy.world 17 points 1 month ago (1 children)

But you think it’s uplifting the American public is being lied to a month before the election with a promise that has 0% chance of coming true?

Fiscal Year 2025 started October 1st, Congress approved a stop gap so they can continue appropriations. You think a president shouldn't announce anything or do anything in the months leading up to an election?

Also, it's lead pipes. We don't use them anymore. Every pipe replaced is a step forward. Biden just announced a deadline.

They've been consistently disbursing funds for this and this time is no different. Here's last May's news : https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/biden-harris-administration-announces-3-billion-lead-pipe-replacement-advance-safe

[–] ricecake@sh.itjust.works 29 points 1 month ago

The program has been going on for decades. The Feds put money in a big account the EPA manages that gives grants and loans to areas that need it to get the process completed faster.
As loans get repaid over the years, the money is leant out again. Most areas have enough income to afford the project, but not enough cash on hand to afford to pay all at once.

This is the first batch of additional money being added to the fund along with a mandate that the problem be resolved in a fixed timeframe.

Currently the fund has used about $20billion to provide $40billion in upgrades over nearly 30 years.

https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/biden-harris-administration-issues-final-rule-requiring-replacement-lead-pipes-within

Funding: The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law provides $50 billion to support upgrades to the nation’s drinking water and wastewater infrastructure. This includes $15 billion over five years dedicated to lead service line replacement and $11.7 billion of general Drinking Water State Revolving Funds that can also be used for lead service line replacement. There are a number of additional pathways for systems to receive financial support for lead service line replacement. These include billions available as low- to no-cost financing through annual funding provided through the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund (DWSRF) program and low-cost financing from the Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA) program. Funding may also be available from other federal agencies, state, and local governments. These efforts also advance the Biden-Harris Administration’s Justice40 Initiative, which sets the goal that 40% of the overall benefits of certain Federal investments flow to disadvantaged communities that are marginalized by underinvestment and overburdened by pollution.

[–] bluGill@fedia.io -5 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Cities should take on most of the cost themselves. Some cities have already done this from their own revenue - pipes wear out over time and so on - why should those cities pay for cities that couldn't be bothered?

[–] TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 8 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

The citizens in those cities don't deserve to have lead poisoning regardless of what city and state officials are willing to allocate to it.
Some cities just objectively have worse lead problems than others.
This feels like the "well I paid off my student loans through hard work, so why should they get theirs paid off for free?" argument. (They are still paying through their own funds too; they're just receiving federal help to accelerate it.)
Having citizens that aren't poisoned by lead is good for the whole of the country, full stop.

I didn't downvote you, by the way; I at least understand the rationale on a surface level.

[–] bluGill@fedia.io -1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Citizens should be voting for politicians who do things. They for politicians who cleaned things up. Will you fire all those corrupt politicians in your town that didn't clean things up? Remember those cities that did clean things up paid for the price on their own. I do not want to reward cities who vote to continue corruption.

[–] TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

You understand that lead poisoning most predominantly affects children, right? So even if your argument is that the minority of voting-age individuals who vote against these politicians should suffer the consequences of the majority who do (let alone that those majority deserve to have lead poisoning for voting in incompetent or corrupt politicians/living in a jurisdiction that can't afford to rapidly replace these lines), you're failing to acknowledge that the children who are most deeply affected here have no say whatsoever.

[–] ricecake@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Because we live in a society.

I don't know how to convey that you should do things that keep people, particularly children, healthy even if they don't live in the same municipal tax jurisdiction.

[–] basmati@lemmus.org -5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

If your thought was shared by society, we wouldn't have lead pipes to begin with and you wouldn't have cause to reply so smugly to someone merely suggesting people should get what they vote for.

[–] ricecake@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 month ago

If people thought we lived in a society, than we wouldn't have used lead pipes in the 1950 or before?
In an era where we didn't know there was as much risk as we found out over the following decades?
What the fuck are you even talking about? Do you know when these pipes were even installed?

Do you think that people should be held responsible for the votes of their great grandparents? Or, more specifically, that their children should get brain damage because of how their great great grandparents voted?

What do you think we gain by letting poor communities be potentially poisoned? That hurts all of us.
Hell, Flint (the prototypical example) didn't even vote for the people who screwed them over. The state government imposed them on the city against their will.
I suppose you think they deserve lead poisoning because they didn't have the good graces to have a flourishing economy after the biggest employer in the city left?