WILMINGTON — President Joe Biden announced $3 billion in funding nationally to replace toxic lead pipes during a speech in Wilmington on May 2. North Carolina will receive a new investment of $76 million for lead pipe replacement across the state, he announced.
“There’s no safe level of lead exposure, none,” Biden said. “The only way forward is to replace every lead service line that connects an American to clean water.”
Nine million lead service lines run across the country, he said.
“Until the United States of America deals with this, how can we say we’re a leading nation in the world?” Biden said.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimated the state has 300,000 lead pipes, according to a White House press release. With the new investment, North Carolina has received $250 million in total funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law for lead pipe replacement, the White House said.
Lead pipes leach “poisonous toxins” into the water, Biden said, and can result in severe health issues, especially in children.
“The cost to replace them is consequential, but too many families only learn the threat to their children after they get sick,” he said.
Nationally, nearly half of the funding will be directed to disadvantaged communities who “have borne the brunt of lead poisoning,” Biden said, as communities of color are disproportionately affected.
Cape Fear Public Utility Authority, which serves Wilmington and much of New Hanover County, secured $4.16 million in funding from the law, according to a press release from the company on May 2.
That’s the largest dollar amount among the 30 communities in the state awarded such funds, according to CFPUA.
The new funding will be administered by the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality, according to the press release from CFPUA, for the company to replace around 300 service lines that are suspected to have lead.
The utility was awarded the money largely because of its early work to comply with new lead regulations from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, according to CFPUA.
The EPA’s proposed lead and copper rule improvements would require the vast majority of water systems to replace lead services lines within 10 years. All water systems must provide an initial inventory of their lead service lines by Oct. 16, 2024, according to the proposal.
CFPUA stops old plumbing fixtures from leaching lead by adding orthophosphate after treatment, the company said, which “forms a protective coating inside pipes and household plumbing fixtures.”
The utility company got “a head start” on meeting the new regulations by starting to look for evidence of potential problem areas in 2020, the company said, and is now almost done inventorying all its 70,000 water service lines.
No lead service lines have been found so far, according to CFPUA, and that early work “played a key role” in securing the federal funds.
The Biden administration also addressed another concern with potentially dangerous chemicals in water.
The EPA announced the first-ever national drinking water standard for PFAS, or “forever chemicals” that can stay in the human body for a prolonged period, on April 10. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law also invested $10 billion towards addressing PFAS pollution in drinking water.
Biden called PFAS “a very dangerous chemical that shouldn’t be near our water supply,” and that companies and military bases are discharging it into the water supply.
He also pointed to the Cape Fear region’s history with PFAS, as the chemical company Chemours’ Bladen County plant contaminated groundwater in the region with PFAS. The consequence has been “aggressive cancers,” Biden said.
EPA Administrator Michael Regan, formerly of DEQ, said at the president’s event in Wilmington that “advocates and public servants helped us get that across the finish line” in passing the standard.
Other state impacts
The federal Bipartisan Infrastructure Law also made it possible for the state Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Water Infrastructure to offer funding that eligible local government units can apply for to address PFAS, Cathy Akroyd, public information officer at the division, told Carolina Public Press.
The federal funding will help North Carolina utilities comply with the new PFAS drinking water standards, Akroyd said in an email.
Projects may include designing solutions for addressing PFAS contamination and adding treatment to drinking water and wastewater, as well as developing alternative sources for drinking water, Akroyd wrote.
The law also directed $7.2 billion in transportation infrastructure funding to North Carolina over five years, according to Aaron Moody, spokesperson for the N.C. Department of Transportation.
The department prioritizes which projects are funded in the state’s ten-year transportation capital plan, Moody told CPP. Of the $7.2 billion, $3.2 has been approved and $2.6 billed so far, Moody said.
The state also won 20 discretionary grants, Moody said, for projects such as the intercity passenger rail project from Raleigh to Richmond. That grant would fund the Raleigh to Wake Forest section, he said.
Biden also included the rail project in his remarks, saying it will reduce pollution by “taking thousands of vehicles off the road.”
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law increased highway funding by 21% and transit funding by 30% from the previous infrastructure legislation, Moody said.
“We certainly welcome that,” he said. “That’s certainly helpful as the cost of doing business is pretty much skyrocketing across the industry.”
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