Biden gives Houston 10 years to replace lead pipes. Clock is ticking for families at risk. (Editorial)

Excavator Operator, Marco Torres, 45, works with fellow SER Construction workers to install a new underground water pipe at the intersection of North Durham Drive and West 20th Street on Thursday, October 27, 2022 in Houston, Texas. The work is part of the Memorial Heights Redevelopment Authority’s Shepherd Durham Project, that will improve infrastructure, landscaping and build bike lanes and side walks along the Shepherd Durham corridor.
(Meridith Kohut / For the Houston Chronicle)Meridith Kohut/Contributor


The inside of this old lead pipe shows a buildup of calcium carbonate, a chemical used to prevent corrosion that can cause lead to leach into water.
Greg Olson | Journal-Courier

Houston Chronicle
By The Editorial Board
December 5, 2023

Dozens of Houston ISD schools have "mind-boggling" levels of lead streaming through their drinking fountains. Hundreds of Fifth Ward residents have been exposed to lead in their drinking water. Thousands of Houston homes are likely lathered in lead-based paint. 

Houston is hardly the only Texas city grappling with this insidious neurotoxin. Across Texas, an estimated 647,000 water lines are made of lead, the fifth-highest percentage in the nation. While the federal government banned lead pipes 37 years ago, lead poisoning is still an acute problem, leading to public water crises in cities such as Flint, Mich. and Newark, N.J. 

Two years ago, when President Joe Biden laid out his plan to spend billions on replacing lead pipes across the nation, he held up Flint as a microcosm of the nation's crumbling infrastructure, noting there are "hundreds of Flints all across America." While Biden began to make good on his promise by setting aside $15 billion for cities to replace nine million lead water service lines through the bipartisan infrastructure bill, his administration announced a new proposal Thursday that will hopefully expedite that process. The Environmental Protection Agency has drafted new rules that would lower the allowable amount of lead permitted in drinking water to 10 parts per billion and require most U.S. cities to replace all lead water pipes within 10 years.

We applaud Biden for this ambitious proposal, and urge the EPA to finalize these new rules as quickly as possible to put a swift end to this public health crisis. Houston is behind the curve and the next mayor will have to level with voters.

The costs of replacing pipes are justified because there are no safe levels of lead in drinking water. Every year hundreds of children under 6 in Houston test positive for elevated levels of lead in their blood. Severe lead poisoning can cause serious brain damage, hearing loss and nerve damage. Even small amounts of lead exposure can affect children's behavior, making them inattentive and irritable. 

While some major cities with vast pipe networks will be eligible for a longer deadline to replace pipes, Houston and Harris County leaders shouldn't rely on that loophole to bail them out of attacking this problem aggressively. While city and county governments do an admirable job testing children and remediating lead-based hazards when found, other Texas cities such as Fort Worth are implementing their action plans to replace pipes.

The first challenge to meeting the 10-year deadline set by the Biden administration is knowing how many lead pipes run through Houston. The proposed rule requires that 10 percent of a city's lead pipes are replaced each year, but Houston hasn't taken a full inventory of exactly how many pipes would need to be replaced. When we asked Houston Public Works about the extent of the problem, the agency pointed to a 2022 water quality report that found "levels of lead in Houston's main system did not trigger" the previous EPA standards. 

Whatever the local tally of lead pipes, replacing them won't be cheap. Water utilities will have to absorb the bulk of the cost for replacing pipes, although cities can apply for a slice of the $15 billion Biden earmarked. Houston already faces a budget deficit once federal COVID-19 funds expire in the next two years. Spiking water bills already have residents and City Council members in open rebellion. Meanwhile Houston's revenue cap, which limits growth in property taxes, the largest source of revenue for the general fund, limits the city's ability to solve big problems. Since 2012, the ReBuild Houston drainage and street repair fund has paid off old bond debts to free up more cash for pay-as-you-go projects that can include water pipes, but the Chronicle's Yilun Cheng reported in August that Houston's efforts to replace 7,600 miles of water pipes has slowed to a crawl. The city replaced just 10 miles of pipes in all of 2022. 

For Houston to meet the proposed federal deadline, the next mayor will have to not only prioritize replacing lead pipes but seek creative ways to finance it. Cities such as Newark, while significantly smaller in population than Houston, offer a useful blueprint. Faced with nearly 23,000 lead service lines poisoning its drinking water, Newark replaced nearly all of them within two years, financing the effort through bonds and passing ordinances allowing it to replace lines without a property owner's consent. 

Safe drinking water isn't a luxury; it's a human right. Houston now has 10 years to make that a reality for every neighborhood. We urge officials to act now.