EDF Health

EDF asks EPA to strengthen key lead service line definition, inventory, and notification provisions in its proposed revision to the LCR

By Tom Neltner, Senior Director, Safer Chemicals Initiative / Published: December 13, 2019

Tom Neltner, J.D., Chemicals Policy Director, Lindsay McCormick, Program Manager, and Sam Lovell, Project Manager.

See all blogs in our LCR series.

Yesterday, EDF submitted comments to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on their proposed revisions to the Lead and Copper Rule (LCR), focusing on changes that EPA should to make to the:

  • Definition of a lead service line (LSL);
  • Requirements for water systems to develop LSL inventories; and
  • Notification of individual consumers who drink water that passes through an LSL.

We highlighted strengths and weaknesses of the LCR in a blog earlier this week, and we encourage states and communities to consider adopting the positive provisions now in addition to the changes we ask EPA to adopt in these comments. Below is a summary of our comments on these three issues. We plan to address other issues on the proposed revisions to the LCR in later comments.

Lead Service Line Definition

EPA’s proposed change to the current definition of an LSL at 40 CFR § 141.2 is flawed because it continues to exempt goosenecks, pigtails, or other connectors made of lead. These connectors are a major source of lead in drinking water not just because they are made of lead, but because they can release significant amounts of lead particulate into water as they flex with temperature, are scoured by turbulent water flow, and as other conditions change.

The exemption of these connectors from the definition of an LSL would render a water system’s LSL inventory and periodic notices to customers misleading because service lines described as “non-lead” may actually have some lead pipe in them. This will give residents a false sense of security. We recommend that the agency modify the proposed definition by deleting the exemption and explicitly stating that goosenecks, pigtails and connectors made of lead are LSLs.

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Also posted in Drinking water, Lead, Regulation, States / Tagged , , , , , | Authors: / Comments are closed

Despite its flaws, states and communities should get ahead of the curve on EPA’s proposed lead in drinking water rule

By Tom Neltner, Senior Director, Safer Chemicals Initiative / Published: December 10, 2019

Tom Neltner, J.D., Chemicals Policy Director, Lindsay McCormick, Program Manager, and Sam Lovell, Project Manager.

See all blogs in our LCR series.

In October, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed changes to its outdated Lead and Copper Rule (LCR), the federal regulation designed to control those contaminants in drinking water. As the result of more than a decade of work by dedicated agency experts, the proposal makes several improvements to key parts of the rule, including requirements for lead service line (LSL) inventories and customer notification. LSLs are the lead pipes that connect the main under the street to homes and buildings and are the most significant source of lead in drinking water.

Unfortunately, EPA’s proposed rule has several serious flaws, including that it:

  • Continues to treat full LSL replacement as a last resort. The proposed rule should make LSL replacement an integral part of a long-term solution, including periodic benchmarks for all water systems to achieve regardless of water testing results.
  • Continues to allow water systems to conduct partial replacements where the property owner is unwilling or unable to pay the cost for the portion not owned by the water system. Partial LSL replacement may significantly increase lead levels in drinking water for months and does not reliably reduce lead levels in the long term. While water systems would be required to gives residents tools (e.g. advanced notice and filters) to reduce the exposure, more is needed. EPA’s own analysis finds that relying on a resident’s ability-to-pay to replace the LSL on their property to avoid partial replacements will leave low-income households with disproportionately higher health risks.
  • Backslides on the rate of mandatory LSL replacement. When a water system’s lead levels are so high that full LSL replacement is mandated, EPA proposes an annual replacement rate that gives the system at least 33 years rather than the current minimum of 15 years to replace all of its LSLs. While more systems are likely to have to conduct mandatory full LSL replacement because of the stricter sampling requirements, most will not.

EPA is accepting comments on the proposed revisions until February 12, 2020. We are preparing detailed comments calling for the agency to fix the flaws before finalizing the rule, and we encourage others to comment as well.

Despite these shortcomings, we want to highlight four positive elements of the proposed rule and encourage states and communities to consider implementing them now – not just because they are likely to be required in the future – but also because they set the stage for full LSL replacement. These elements are that water systems must:

  • Develop an LSL inventory, update it annually, and make it publicly accessible;
  • Notify customers that they have or may have an LSL;
  • Take precautions when disturbing LSLs; and
  • Sample more homes with LSLs and take earlier action based on the results.

In this blog, we provide an overview of these key improvements. In future blogs, we will describe our recommendations to strengthen the rule based on our comments to the agency.

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Also posted in Drinking water, Health policy, Lead, Regulation, States / Tagged , , , , , , | Comments are closed

Illinois poised to strictly limit partial lead service line replacement: How does it compare to Michigan and proposed EPA rules?

By Tom Neltner, Senior Director, Safer Chemicals Initiative / Published: November 25, 2019

Tom Neltner, J.D., Chemicals Policy Director and Lindsay McCormick, Program Manager

Illinois is poised to be the second state in the country to strictly limit the practice of partially replacing lead service lines (LSL). Partially – rather than fully – replacing these lines that connect the drinking water main under the street to homes can significantly increase lead levels in drinking water for months and does not reliably reduce lead levels over time. Last week, the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) released amendments to the Illinois Plumbing Code that include significant restrictions on partial LSL replacements. If the state’s legislative oversight committee for rulemaking does not object, the agency can finalize the rule.

If adopted, the changes would set the stage for all LSLs and galvanized service lines in the state to eventually be fully replaced. The changes are significant because the Illinois has an estimated 679,000 LSLs, by far the most in the country, as well as 60,000 galvanized service lines, and an additional 1.07 million service lines of unknown material that may be lead.

Michigan, with its estimated 460,000 LSLs, took a similar action in June 2018 when it strengthened its version of Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Lead and Copper Rule (LCR). However, Michigan’s rule applies only to public water systems (PWS). In contrast, Illinois’s planned revisions apply to anyone who alters a service line including both PWSs and licensed plumbers.

In October, EPA proposed revisions to the LCR. However, unlike Michigan and Illinois, EPA’s proposed rule would continue to allow PWSs to conduct partial replacements where the property owner is unwilling or unable to pay the cost for the portion not owned by the PWS.

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1,4-dioxane: The case of the disappearing tumors

By / Published: September 11, 2019

Rachel Shaffer is a consultant.  Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Lead Senior Scientist.

As we highlighted in a previous post, EDF filed extensive comments on EPA’s draft risk evaluation for 1,4-dioxane. Among the many concerns we raised was a decision by the Trump EPA to completely dismiss female mouse liver cancer data used by EPA’s Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) program as key inputs to its cancer risk modeling conducted in 2013. The Agency appears to be trying every trick in the trade – such as excluding most exposure sources and routes – in its effort to conclude that the chemical presents few or no risks to human health or the environment. Read on for more on this latest one. Read More »

Also posted in Health policy, Health science, Industry influence, Regulation / Tagged , | Comments are closed

The Trump EPA is setting back chemicals policies by decades

By / Published: June 13, 2019

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Lead Senior Scientist.

As we approach the third anniversary of the historic passage of bipartisan legislation to overhaul our nation’s broken chemical safety system, we’re hearing that political appointees at the agency are gearing up to celebrate their “successes” in implementing the law.[pullquote]Even more disturbing than its individual actions are the methodical steps the Trump EPA is taking to dismantle decades of progress in our country’s chemicals policies.[/pullquote]

While the chemical industry may well have things to celebrate, it’s simply not the case for the rest of us:  Comments from former top EPA officials, members of Congress, state and local governments, labor groups, firefighters, water utilities, public health groups, and a broad range of environmental groups make crystal clear that there’s nothing warranting celebration.  EPA’s actions are threatening the health of American families.

But as I reflect on how implementation of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) has gone off the rails under the Trump EPA, even more disturbing than its individual actions are the methodical steps it is taking to dismantle decades of progress in our country’s chemicals policies.  In this post, I’ll briefly highlight five such policies and how this EPA is undermining them:

  • Pollution prevention
  • Inherent safety and hazard reduction
  • Protection of vulnerable subpopulations and environmental justice
  • Holistic, real-world risk assessment
  • Public right to know

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Also posted in Health policy, Industry influence, Regulation, TSCA reform, Worker safety / Tagged , , , , | Read 2 Responses

The Trump EPA is illegally denying requests for public files on new chemicals

By / Published: June 3, 2019

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Lead Senior Scientist.

For some time now, Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) has been requesting “public files” of new chemical notices the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) receives under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).  The process is kludge-y to say the least.  We have to email our request to EPA’s Docket Center, and, typically, several weeks later the staff there copy the files that staff in the TSCA office have given them in response to our request onto a CD-ROM and snail-mail it to us.

This, despite the fact that EPA’s own regulations (see here and here) state unequivocally that EPA is to promptly make new chemicals’ premanufacture notifications (PMNs) and associated documents broadly available to the general public by posting them to electronic dockets.  One regulation states: “All information submitted with a notice, including any health and safety study and other supporting documentation, will become part of the public file for that notice, unless such materials are claimed confidential.”  The other regulation states that public files are to be made available in the electronic docket posted at http://www.regulations.gov.

We have blogged extensively about how, even once we receive the public files, they are rife with wholesale omissions, illegal redactions and myriad other problems.

After two years of our repeated requests to EPA to comply with its own regulations, it appears EPA may be taking a first step to try do so:  EPA recently announced (via email, but not anywhere on its website that we can find) that it will start posting PMNs and associated documents it receives in the future to its ChemView database, within 45 days of their receipt.  While this could be a welcome development, it does nothing to remedy EPA’s failure to provide access to the thousands of PMNs it has received in the past.  And it remains to be seen what EPA actually will and won’t be posting.

We’ll be watching closely to see when and what EPA actually makes available.  Part of the need for vigilance comes from a disturbing response we’ve been receiving from EPA’s Docket Center to some recent requests for new chemical public files:   Read More »

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