Important progress was recently made on one of the Biden administration’s most important environmental initiatives – removing lead from drinking water.

On August 1, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) submitted its proposals to improve the lead and copper regulations (LCRI) to the White House for final review. The draft regulations are now with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA).

This important White House office is the last stop before the EPA can require all water utilities to replace the toxic lead pipes that supply water to millions of people. The EPA received hundreds of thousands of comments in support of this initiative – more than ever before for a drinking water regulation.

But many water suppliers are urging the EPA – and now the White House – dilute the rule. One of the loudest voices was the American Water Works Association (AWWA), which lobbies on behalf of utility interests in Washington. In fact, the AWWA met with the OMB this month to voice its concerns.

When the EPA proposed the rule last year, AWWA expressed its support for the idea to replace all lead pipes. But they opposed the EPA’s proposal to require Utilities to replace all those pipes. Why? Their main complaint always seems to be the cost.

AWWA claims the cost of replacing a lead service line far exceeds the EPA’s estimated costs, citing a 2022 study they commissioned that examined cost data from select cities.

Therefore, NRDC commissioned an independent review of AWWA’s cost study by Safe Water Engineering. It turns out that AWWA’s cost estimates greatly exaggeratedConversely, EPA’s cost estimates are consistent with the costs of lead service line replacement projects across the country, as well as typical labor and material costs in the construction industry.

We submitted the Safe Water Engineering report to EPA in February 2024 along with our comments on the LCRI, meaning the report is now also available to OMB. We urge the White House to acknowledge and reject industry’s excessive cost claims.

We also explained in our comments the tremendous benefits of this new rule, which will protect millions of people today and for generations to come. OMB should ensure that EPA does not undervalue the Advantages Keep lead out of drinking water, as the agency has done before.

AWWA exaggerates costs by using biased methodologies.

The independent analysis we commissioned identified several ways in which AWWA’s cost study artificially inflated the figures. These include:

• Selective inclusion of data from some cities and exclusion of data from others; and
• Double billing and other overestimation of “additional” non-construction-related costs.

The report also provides several pieces of evidence that EPA’s lower cost estimates are reasonable and more reliable than those of AWWA:

• EPA’s cost estimates were supported by a more robust and better documented dataset of projects across the country.
• An independent literature review covering a wide range of local lead service replacement programs concludes that EPA’s estimates are reasonable compared to the costs reported in the literature.
• A bottom-up cost estimate of the materials, equipment, and labor required to replace lead service lines—using an industry-standard construction cost tracking database (RS Means)—produces a total cost per line consistent with EPA estimates.
• Adjusting the AWWA data to avoid the biases mentioned above produces results consistent with EPA estimates.
• The highest costs per line reported by individual water systems are outliers. The highest costs would only occur under a small number of conditions that do not occur in most cases.

Finally, the report identifies many strategies that water utilities can use to further reduce their costs. Some examples include minimizing road damage when replacing a utility line, eliminating excessive repaving requirements, tailoring traffic control requirements to each neighborhood, developing a bulk permitting process to reduce permit fees, and using contracting and bidding processes that can reduce costs.

If the water utility replaces the entire line—from the main water line under the street to the house—the cost is also less than if it treats the portion of the line under private property separately. (As I explained here, utilities can do this without making residential water bills unaffordable.)

The report identifies several cities – Cincinnati, Denver and Milwaukee – that were able to reduce costs over the course of multi-year programs through improved program planning and implementation, even as some material costs increased due to inflation.

It’s time to get the LCRI across the finish line.

We’ve heard the same story before: water utilities try to undermine safe drinking water regulations by overstating the costs, not to mention understating the benefits.

Last year, the EPA first proposed limits on toxic “forever chemicals,” known as PFAS, in drinking water. In response, the AWWA released exaggerated cost estimates to thwart the plan. The Biden-Harris administration saw through it. The EPA finalized the rules earlier this year, backed by a point-by-point response to the AWWA’s cost numbers. (The water utilities then took their complaints to court. NRDC has stepped in to help the EPA defend the rule, which is based on a comprehensive record of scientific, technical and economic analysis.)

Now it’s time for the White House to get the lead and copper rule improvements passed, too. The EPA has said it plans to adopt the final rule by mid-October – before a much weaker set of rules would otherwise go into effect. Now it’s the OMB’s turn to help the EPA get the job done.