Trump administration to stand by tough Biden-era mandates to replace lead pipes
Source: AP
Updated 9:13 PM EST, February 20, 2026
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration said Friday it backs a 10-year deadline for most cities and towns to replace their harmful lead pipes, giving notice that it will support a tough rule approved under the Biden administration to reduce lead in drinking water. The Environmental Protection Agency told a federal appeals court in Washington that it would defend the strongest overhaul of lead-in-water standards in three decades against a court challenge by a utility industry association.
The Trump administration has typically favored rapid deregulation, including reducing or killing rules on air and water pollution. On Friday, for example, it repealed tight limits on mercury and other toxic emissions from coal plants. But the agency has taken a different approach to drinking water.
“After intensive stakeholder involvement, EPA concluded that the only way to comply with the Safe Drinking Water Act’s mandate to prevent anticipated adverse health effects ‘to the extent feasible’ is to require replacement of lead service lines,” the agency’s court filing said.
Doing so by a 10-year deadline is feasible, the agency added, supporting a rule that was based in part of the finding that old rules that relied on chemical treatment and monitoring to reduce lead “failed to prevent system-wide lead contamination and widespread adverse health effects.”
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/trump-lead-pipes-drinking-water-contamination-epa-6e1c7c45f1ba41ae69dfb13fa9510ef8
This was so shocking that I did this -
45's gutted "EPA" (in quotes) has pushed for the deregulation and reintroduction of every other substance known to man that will kill people but "lead" somehow seemed to be some kind of "line in the sand" for them.
Maybe they want to corner a market for the retrieval of the old lead pipes and lead solder on discarded copper pipes so they can make their dreams come true!
= new reply since forum marked as read
... replacing 100-year-old lead pipes that were installed at a time when there were few alternatives. It's mainly the municipal water system but it means going neighborhood by neighborhood, street by street ripping up pavements and replacing these old pipes. While doing all of that, the workers are replacing old gas pipes as well, because it's only a matter of time for those to go. It's a monumental undertaking.
Individual homeowners must also replace any lead pipes within our own property, but that part is done at the cost of the homeowners.
I'm sure all the older US cities that were built up before World War II are having to do the same. That includes almost every city in Pennsylvania. In Pittsburgh this project has been going on for about 5 years.
I kid you not!
About five sections of wooden water mains measuring 1.8- to 3.6-m (6- to 12-ft) long were recovered in May. Photo courtesy of the Philadelphia Water Department Historical Collection.
Philadelphia installed its first wooden mains around 1800 to distribute water through the city using gravity. Photo courtesy of the Philadelphia Water Department Historical Collection.
The last wooden pipe in the city was taken out of service in 1859, but some were left in the ground. Abandoned water pipes have been uncovered during street excavations, such as these pipes removed in 1925. Photo courtesy of the Philadelphia Water Department Historical Collection.
https://www.wef.org/publications/news/wef-news/found-in-philadelphia-200-year-old-wooden-water-mains/
I remember one of the alley streets near where I worked had one taken out about 20 years ago.
the Water department said it basically "petrified" due to sediment from the river and water table, probably because we're talking a couple blocks from the current Delaware River, but a block from the actual original waterfront - https://water.phila.gov/watersheds/history/
An illustration of the Delaware waterfront at Front Street and Market Street in 1702. Dock’s Creek is to the south of Market and Pegg’s Run; both creeks were eventually filled or buried. City of Philadelphia Archive
It currently looks like this along the stretch where several blocks worth of land were dredged and filled in. Front Street is where the low-rise set of red buildings are in the center of the pic -
The alley is about a block and a half in from Front St. There were "new" streets created since the 1800s including what is the current "waterfront" street - Delaware Avenue (and parts of that in that location/area, are below sea level), and the final I-95 link in the 1970s .
and parts of the trunk were literally like rock pipe chunks that didn't "split" but actually shattered in places as they were digging it out.
Pittsburgh (formerly called Fort Duquesne) was a primitive trading post in the early 1800's.
Remember the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794? That was us.
The so-called "Rocky steps" at the Philly Art Museum sits on a hill that was once a big water reservoir, since it sits next to the Schuylkill River and they used "gravity" to supply water further east into town from there and then built the Fairmount Waterworks right there too for a water supply.
https://fairmountpark.weebly.com/fairmount-water-works.html
And I have been to fair Pittsburgh several times and even got on the Duquesne Incline!
