A Bittersweet 50th Anniversary of the Safe Drinking Water Act
Thank you for tuning in to Environmental Protection News. In 2024, the EPA took significant steps to protect public health on the 50th anniversary of the Safe Drinking Water Act, finalizing new standards for six PFAS chemicals and setting a deadline to replace lead pipes. These actions promised crucial protections for millions of Americans. However, with political shifts following the 2024 election, these advancements may be at risk. EPA alumnus Dr. Betsy Southerland and Ronnie Levin discuss the EPA’s accomplishments and the potential consequences of weakening these essential regulations. - Aaron Bharucha, EPN Communications Associate
A Bittersweet 50th Anniversary of the Safe Drinking Water Act
In 2024, EPA set out to meaningfully celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) by putting new regulations in place that would further the strong health protections embodied in the law. In April 2024, EPA finalized standards for 6 PFAS chemicals, protecting over 100 million people from deadly cancers, liver and heart disease as well as immune and developmental problems in children. These were the first new drinking water standards set since the 1996 amendments to the SDWA created an incredibly high bar for regulating any new contaminant.
EPA celebrated with another major achievement in October 2024 by finalizing a new Lead and Copper Rule that for the first time set a deadline for replacing all the lead pipes that carry drinking water from water mains to homes and businesses. Lead pipes were banned under the SDWA in 1986 because it was then known that there was no safe level of lead in drinking water. Their replacement will finally protect another generation from exposure.
The celebrations may soon end as a tragic result of the 2024 election. In a recent Senate hearing on the 50th anniversary of SDWA, Senator Shelley Moore Capito declared that as the incoming chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, she will work with the Trump administration to address the Biden administration’s overly broad and poorly balanced SDWA regulations. Senator Capito clearly expects that the Trump EPA will replace both the PFAS and lead and copper rules. Attempts to weaken these rules will have significant public health impacts.
EPA’s new PFAS drinking water standards were based on a rigorous scientific review of hundreds of animal and human studies demonstrating the toxic effects of these 6 chemicals, and a detailed analysis showing that the benefits of meeting these standards far exceed the costs. Recognizing the challenges of meeting the standards, EPA gave water utilities until 2029 to comply. Unfortunately, water utility trade groups joined chemical companies to challenge the new standards in federal court. Based on Senator Capito’s comments, it is likely the Trump Department of Justice will not defend the standards, and the Trump EPA will replace the rule with weaker standards.
If the Trump EPA raises the allowable concentration of these 6 PFAS in drinking water, many people will be harmed. From 2023 to 2025, EPA is monitoring 29 PFAS chemicals in the drinking water of all large and midsize public water systems in the country. The agency has already collected 55% of the total data, and the results show that 12% of the water systems exceed one or more of the 6 PFAS standards. The data indicate the frequent presence of more than one PFAS chemical. Most of the systems exceeding one or more of the PFAS standards have multiple PFAS chemicals in their drinking water, and there is no information on the safe level of 16 of the PFAS detected. If water systems install the treatment needed to meet the 6 PFAS standards, they will also reduce the co-occurring, unregulated PFAS chemicals and any detrimental health risks they pose.
Weaker PFAS drinking water standards will result in many fewer drinking water systems being required to treat the water to reduce these toxic chemicals. The water systems that do not exceed the new, higher standards will continue to have multiple PFAS in their drinking water, none of which will be reduced no matter how toxic they are. The water systems that exceed the new, higher standards will have to treat, but treatment will be delayed most likely for 10 years as the Trump EPA will need four years to redo the standards with another five years allowed for compliance.
The final Lead and Copper Rule is also at serious risk of being weakened. It required most water systems to replace their lead service lines within 10 years of the 2027 effective date of the rule. Water systems with exceptionally large numbers of lead service lines were given even longer to complete the replacement, up to 20 years in the case of Chicago. Congress could use the Congressional Review Act (CRA), which gives it the power to invalidate final rules under certain conditions, to repeal this new rule. Or the Trump administration could decide to repeal and replace it with weaker requirements. The 2024 Lead and Copper Rule replaced a Trump administration 2021 rule that only required water systems to replace lead service lines if they could not reduce lead concentrations by controlling corrosion in the lines that leaches lead into drinking water. If corrosion controls failed to reduce lead concentrations, water systems were given up to 30 years to replace the lead service lines. The new Trump administration could repeal the new rule and replace it with a version of the 2021 rule, or a rule that allows all water systems many more years to replace their lead service lines.
If Congress uses the CRA to repeal the lead and copper improvement rule or the Trump administration decides to replace it with weaker requirements, yet another generation of Americans will be exposed to unsafe levels of lead in drinking water. EPA estimated that every year the 2024 rule is in effect, it will protect up to 900,000 infants from low birthweight, prevent up to 2,600 children from experiencing ADHD, reduce up to 1,500 cases of premature death from heart disease, and prevent the loss of up to 200,000 IQ points in children. EPA also projected that the health and other benefits of the new rule will exceed the costs of implementation by $13 billion annually. All of these benefits will be lost if Congress or the Trump administration repeals the new lead and copper improvement rule.
Fifty years ago, Congress recognized the critical need to protect the Nation’s drinking water and passed the Safe Drinking Water Act. Furthering the intent of the law, last year, EPA set drinking water standards for new chemicals that pose significant cancer and other health risks, and for the first time set a deadline for the replacement of lead service lines, the main source of lead in drinking water. The American people cannot afford to lose the significant nationwide health benefits of these new rules.
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