The Opportunity

Today, we have an unprecedented opportunity to eliminate the solvable problem of lead in drinking water. This is largely due to several major developments:

Without key changes in policies, procurement, data management, and practices, we may miss the potential of this moment.

Smaller and medium-sized municipalities often don’t have the technology and tools or resources to clearly locate and map their lines, update their data systems, digitize their paper records, update maps in real time as replacement happens, or prioritize replacement in the most burdened neighborhoods. Municipalities sometimes don’t have the right tools or personnel to communicate effectively to the public, or the needed partners on the ground in the community to build trust. And they often don’t have the capacity to create a financial plan and design and implement an effective lead service line replacement program. In many cases, too, communities may procure contractors from outside their region, rather than hiring locally. 

Newark is an example of a city that replaced 100 percent of its lead pipes in three years through a coordinated effort between city officials and other partners, leadership at all levels of their local government, critical funding that included municipal bonding and other innovative arrangements, and a staggering 70 percent of the program costs staying within the community thanks to local hiring and workforce development.

The question is… how do we create more Newarks in 11,000 communities across the country with lead pipes?

While replacing one pipe may seem simple, replacing ten million of them in thousands of communities is not. Municipal governments need fast and cost-effective ways to identify where their lead lines are, digitize and manage their data, communicate effectively to the public, prioritize burdened populations and neighborhoods, center the community’s needs, and hire, train, and procure contractors locally to carry out replacements.

Go back to all water team initiatives.