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    • EDF Health

    Chemical Concerns – Insights on Air Pollution, Public Health, and Chemical Safety

    Major Lead Pipe Funding Shifts: What’s Changed Since Last Year

    Posted: in Chemical exposure, Drinking water, Environmental justice, Lead, Public health, Vulnerable populations

    Written By

    Roya Alkafaji
    Roya Alkafaji

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    Despite a 6-month delay and data gaps, EPA’s  drastic reduction in lead service line counts may have unintended consequences.

    What Happened?
    After a 6-month long delay, EPA announced the next round of federal funding dedicated to lead service line replacement in late November. This year’s funding, totaling $3 billion, is allotted to states based on the service line inventories that were required to be submitted in October 2024.
     
    This is the fourth year of the $15 billion funding as part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure law, dedicated to replace harmful lead pipes delivering drinking water to homes in thousands of communities.

    Prior year allotments are based on EPA’s 7th Drinking Water Infrastructure Needs Survey and Assessment (DWINSA), a voluntary survey used to estimate water infrastructure needs. Now, the allotments are based on the service line inventories that utilities submitted to states as part of their requirements under the Lead and Copper Rule Revisions. This data is now driving the best current estimate of total lead pipes in the nation, which has drastically reduced from 9 million to 4 million.
     
    How Did the Funding Change?
    -Illinois received the greatest allotment – $309 million compared with $240 in FY24, a 29% increase.
    -Michigan had the largest increase in allotted funds, receiving $87.5 million more than what they received in FY24.
    -Florida had the largest decrease – from being allotted $228 million to just $34 million in FY25. (EDF has pointed out the issue with Florida receiving a large, outsized proportion of the money two years in a row and this issue has finally been resolved.)
    -32 states are receiving the minimum allotted amount of $28.6 million – 8 of those were previously receiving more than that in FY24, with North Carolina losing the most ($47.6 million).

    Check out the map below to see all the changes since the FY24 allotment.
    Map of FY25 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding allotments for lead service line replacement.

    What happened to all the lead service lines?
    In EPA’s factsheet, the map shows a distribution of lead pipes around the country which seems to be more in line with previously thought assumptions – a high concentration of lead pipes in the Midwest and northeastern regions, with not many lead pipes at all in Florida and the west where there tend to be newer builds. Bizarrely, EPA’s estimated total number of lead service lines has more than halved, from $9 million to $4 million.
     
    At first glance, the reduction in total lead pipes seems like a good thing – and in fact may reflect some progress in replacement across the country. However, it may be more likely that this dramatic reduction reflects an underestimate, which could prove to be challenging for utilities down the line.
     
    EPA uses a formula to determine the allotments, pulling from data submitted by utilities on service line material types and projecting the number of each type in the state. They did make some questionable choices when it came to applying the data to address gaps in the service line inventories. For example:
    -If a blank inventory was submitted, EPA assumed this meant the community is reporting all non-lead service lines. There is no indication that they validated this information with the community or the state directly. Almost 5,000 communities did not report anything.
    -If a state did not report the number of non-lead service lines for a system but reported all other service material types, EPA estimated the number of non-lead service lines by taking the difference between their total service connections (from EPA’s SDWIS database) and reported number of service lines (from the October 2024 inventory). This could result in an inaccurate estimate by mislabeling lead service lines as non-lead.  This applied to almost 6,000 communities.
     
    While fewer lead pipes nationally would be a positive change, this drastic reduction may have unintended consequences if this new total is an underestimate, ultimately making it difficult for water utilities to plan effectively and receive needed funding for replacement.
     
    Go Deeper
    Read EPA’s memo on the funding allotments.

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