EPA to Reduce Lead Limit in Drinking Water

Addressing one of the most serious environmental threats to children, the Environmental Protection Agency Tuesday unveiled regulations that it says will reduce the lead content in Americans’ drinking water to a fraction of presently permissible levels.

But while the agency touted the rules as the greatest blow against the lead hazard since the ban on leaded gasoline, critics called them a “tragic disappointment,” particularly since water suppliers would have as long as 21 years to fully comply.

The EPA rules, to be phased in beginning Jan. 1, will require the nation’s 79,000 residential water suppliers to monitor lead content at household taps across the country and take steps to reduce concentrations that exceed 15 parts per billion.

Moreover, the EPA says the new rules will effectively reduce the content to 5 parts per billion since samples will be taken from taps that have been turned off at least six hours. Thus the lead content in the samples will be about three times higher than the average flow from the tap.

The current standard of 50 parts per billion is so lenient it is rarely abridged. When the standard is exceeded, suppliers currently must notify customers.

The problem of lead in drinking water is generally worse in the Northeast and the Pacific Northwest, where many of the old, large water systems have lead piping.

Southern California has no lead pipelines, which are the main source of contamination. Many households do have lead soldering in household plumbing, but Southern California’s hard water tends to lessen corrosion of the soldering.

“Compared to the nation, Southern California as a whole is in pretty good shape,” said Ed Means, director of water quality for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.

Deputy EPA Administrator Henry Habicht said the overall result of the new program, when fully implemented, will be to provide 10 times more protection against lead than present regulations.

But environmentalists and members of Congress blasted the long-awaited regulations. Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on health and the environment, accused the environmental agency of “gross incompetence” and called for EPA Administrator William K. Reilly to appear before the panel on Friday.

Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) wrote Reilly that his Environment and Public Works subcommittee would also “examine the folly of your decision.”

Under the new requirements, water systems serving more than 50,000 people will be required to begin their monitoring programs by next Jan. 1, with medium-sized systems to follow six months later and small systems by Jan. 1, 1993.

Systems where more than 10% of monitored taps show a lead content of more than 15 parts per billion will be required to take steps to limit corrosion, which permits lead to leach from lead pipes and soldered joints. In cases where chemical treatment fails to bring the content down to the acceptable level, service lines will eventually have to be replaced.

EPA officials said significant reductions in lead exposure through drinking water should come within the next six years as a result of the new program. Ninety-five percent of the problem, they said, can be eliminated by the treatment of water with safe agents to reduce corrosion--some communities having used baking soda.

But critics maintained that dangerous amounts of lead could remain for more than two decades in the water delivered by some systems.

Large water suppliers will have a little more than five years to come into compliance through the use of corrosion control programs, medium-sized systems will have six years, and small systems serving less than 3,300 people will have seven years.

Those that still fail to meet requirements will then have an additional 15 years to complete the replacement of their service pipes.

“A 21-year-old timetable for reducing the level of lead in drinking water is too long for too many children who will be poisoned while we take our time,” said Sen. Bill Bradley (D-N.J.).

“Buried in the hoopla over EPA’s new rule,” Waxman said, “is the sad fact that the agency’s long-awaited rule making on lead is a tragic disappointment.”

Times staff writer Dan Morain in Los Angeles contributed to this story.