Deanna Branch understands the dangers of lead poisoning all too well—her 2-year-old son has been hospitalized twice for lead poisoning because of his exposure to the lead water pipes that serve their Milwaukee home. At one measurement, her toddler's blood lead level measured 50 times the average level for an adult.
Deanna's story echoes those of approximately 22 million Americans across the country—disproportionately people of color and those from low-income households—who are affected by water pipes containing lead, also called lead service lines (LSLs). Safe drinking water is a fundamental human right, but millions of people across the United States cannot access water in their own home without exposing themselves to poison.
The Biden administration has begun to address this lead crisis by investing a historic $50 billion toward aggressively updating the country's drinking water infrastructure and proposing a rule change to accelerate the remediation timeline.
But protecting vulnerable communities and meeting the administration's ambitious timeline will require a whole-of-nation approach to building lead-free communities—and there's no time to lose.
Any amount of lead exposure to the body is harmful, and young children are especially vulnerable to its effects. Even in small doses, lead toxicity can lead to long-term brain damage in young children and may contribute to delayed growth, behavioral challenges, learning disabilities, and even hearing and speech impairments. In Deanna's case, her son's lead poisoning led to eventual diagnoses of oppositional defiant disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)—permanent and irreversible effects. And drinking water isn't the only source of lead exposure. Dust from lead paint and heavy metals in our soil and agricultural machinery contaminate our food supplies, including baby food.
The widespread public health consequences of lead toxicity also have significant economic ramifications. The presence of lead in a home can force a family to make difficult decisions to protect their safety, including sometimes being temporarily displaced from their home during lead remediation, which can cause substantial financial and emotional upheaval.
After Deanna's son was hospitalized the second time, Child Protective Services notified her that she could not return to her home until the lead exposure issues had been resolved. Soon after, she was forced to break her lease and move her family into a homeless shelter, leaving them housing insecure for months. Due to historic residential segregation and underinvestment in marginalized communities, families of color like Deanna's are overrepresented in communities facing the highest rates of lead exposure.
The Biden administration has sought to mitigate this environmental injustice through its Get the Lead Out initiative, partnering with 200 underserved communities to identify and remove LSLs. More recently, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed improvements that would accelerate the remediation timeline from more than 70 years in some areas to just 10 years. The EPA also instituted a number of new rules for mapping LSLs, collecting water samples and testing them, and reducing community exposure. These steps support the administration's Justice40 Initiative, which aims to ensure 40 percent of the benefits from certain federal investments support marginalized communities.
The Center for American Progress recently released a report examining the impact of federal infrastructure funding on LSL replacement projects in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The report also outlined recommendations that other jurisdictions can adopt to accelerate their own LSL replacement work. These specific recommendations included improving data collection processes, prioritizing the mitigation of environmental injustice, replacing entire LSLs instead of portions, centering community voices, and offering short-term safeguards against lead exposure.
Families like Deanna's shouldn't have to fear for their children's safety when drinking water supplied through the pipes in their own homes. The Biden administration has led a new wave of action to help ensure today's children are protected from poisoned drinking water, but it's going to take action at all levels of the government in partnership with community leaders to solve this public health crisis.
Mariam Rashid is the associate director of racial equity and justice at the Center for American Progress.
Hailey Gibbs is a senior policy analyst of early childhood policy at the Center.
The views expressed in this article are the writers' own.
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