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Kevin Wurm

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Joshua Perkins was surprised one morning last summer to see trucks from Memphis Light, Gas and Water outside his home. When he went to get a glass of water from the sink, nothing came out. Then rumbles of construction on the street began, as did chimes on his phone.

Perkins, the president of his neighborhood association, learned from a group chat what was happening: The utility had sent letters saying it would soon be replacing some lead pipes in the neighborhood, though Perkins said he never received one. Three years ago, Perkins’s water test from the company came back “safe,” he said, but the recent flurry of activity reawakened his concerns about lead contamination.

“No one tells you what they are doing,” Perkins said. “They just do it.”

Even after utility workers pulled pipes from underneath the street in front of Perkins’s residence, leaving a hole in the sidewalk for months, the lead pipes under his home remain.

A decade after a crisis in Flint, Mich., triggered national alarm about the dangers of lead in U.S. drinking water, the White House <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/11/30/fact-sheet-biden-harris-administration-announces-new-action-to-protect-communities-from-lead-exposure/" target="_blank">estimates</a> that more than 9 million lead pipelines still supply homes across the country. In his first year in office, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/candidates/joe-biden-2024/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">President Biden</a> secured $15 billion through the bipartisan infrastructure law to address the problem. Still, residents across the country are grappling with a patchwork system of replacing those lines — which begins in some places as a partial replacement of lead pipes — sowing confusion and uncertainty about the safety of their everyday tap water.

The cost of drinking contaminated water can last for decades. There is no safe level of exposure to lead, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It can <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/lead/prevention/health-effects.htm" target=_blank>cause</a> developmental delays, difficulty learning and behavioral problems. Even low-level exposure can cause permanent cognitive damage, especially in developing children, and it <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/lead/prevention/populations.htm" target=_blank>disproportionately</a> harms Black and low-income families. Recent research found that school-age children affected by the crisis in Flint endured <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2024/03/13/flint-children-school-academic-setbacks/" target=_blank>significant and lasting academic setbacks.</a>

In 2014, Flint officials switched the city’s water source to save money but did not ensure there were corrosion-control chemicals in the new water supply. Residents in the majority-Black city, where a third of the population lives in poverty, quickly began complaining of contaminated water coming from their taps. But complaints were ignored for more than a year. Nearly 100,000 Flint residents were exposed to lead through their home water sources, <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/lead/programs/flint-registry.htm" target=_blank>according to the CDC</a>.

Following a monumental citizen <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/11/11/flint-michigan-water-settlement-children/" target=_blank>lawsuit against the city of Flint</a> and Michigan state officials, they agreed to pay for the removal of all the city’s lead service line pipes. Though the city originally agreed to replace all of the pipes by early 2020, some residents are still waiting.

The Environmental Protection Agency has projected that replacing the nearly 10 million lead pipes that supply U.S. homes with drinking water could cost at least <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/11/30/lead-pipe-poisoning-biden-epa/" target="_blank">$45 billion</a>. The EPA has separately <a href="https://www.epa.gov/ground-water-and-drinking-water/proposed-lead-and-copper-rule-improvements" target="_blank">proposed</a> requiring water utilities nationwide to replace all those lead pipes within 10 years.

“Communities around the country are already engaged in efforts to replace their lead service line, and some are ahead of others, for sure,” said Bruno Pigott, the EPA’s acting assistant administrator for water.

Since <a href="https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2023-04/Final_FY23%20DWSRF%20Allotment%20Memo%20and%20Attachments_April%202023.pdf" target=_blank>2022</a>, Tennessee has been allotted nearly $139 million from the infrastructure law to get rid of lead pipes. But, once the money is distributed, it’s up to the state to decide how to spend and distribute funds to cities.

To be eligible for the funding, Memphis’s utility must fulfill certain requirements, said LaTricea Adams, from the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council, like completing a comprehensive inventory of lead pipe locations. The city is still waiting for approval. Memphis Light, Gas and Water has conducted 5,843 partial replacements since 2012, according to documents provided to the city council this week, out of 24,000 lead pipes officials have said are in the city.

Doug McGowen, the utility’s president, said during a Memphis City Council committee meeting on Tuesday that replacing all the city’s pipes could cost up to $100 million.

Utility spokeswoman Ursula Madden said the company has tested 4,014 samples of water at its customers’ request and returned 24 samples, 0.5 percent, that were above 15 parts per billion, the level at which the EPA calls for replacing lead pipes.

The varying drinking water systems across the country reflect differences in state attitudes and cultures, but in a “perfect world, everyone would have the same system,” said Ronnie Levin, an environmental health instructor at Harvard University. To Levin, the piecemeal approach to lead replacement programs reflects lack of rigor on the part of federal officials.

“The EPA could have a more rigorous approach than it does, but water utilities tend to be feisty,” said Levin, who worked as a scientist at the EPA for more than 30 years. She equated the nation’s disparate public water systems to “trying to corral 60,000 teenagers with attitudes.”

Lead pipes were initially installed in cities decades ago because they were cheaper and more malleable. But the heavy metal can wear down and corrode, causing lead to leach into drinking water, which prompted Congress to ban installing them in 1986. Memphis’s utility stopped using lead for service lines in the 1950s, before Tennessee banned the use of lead service lines in 1988.

In Memphis, utilities started doing partial lead service line replacements in 2012 — a process in which some utilities have begun to replace water service lines under public property, while leaving in place any lead pipes from the property line to the home. And until federal funding kicks in to fully pay for affected lines, it’s up to owners to pay to replace any lead pipes remaining on private property.

Memphis Light, Gas and Water treats the water with phosphate to form a barrier between the pipes and the drinking water to prevent leaching of lead and copper, Madden said.

Over 200 water utilities across the country have established lead service line replacement programs, including both partial and full replacement programs, according to data compiled by the <a href="https://www.edf.org/national-map-LSL-replacement-programs" target=_blank>Environmental Defense Fund</a>.

Kym Byrd, who now has copper pipes leading to her home, has lived with the consequences of lead in Memphis for more than two decades.

Byrd had no idea about the impacts when the housing projects she lived in started testing residents’ children for lead in 2002. She learned her son suffered from lead poisoning.

Byrd wasn’t sure whether it was the old paint that had chipped or water from rusted lead pipes that poisoned her son. But the damage was done.

The son, LaKendrick Young, experienced developmental delays in talking and was mute for long periods until he turned 8. Instead, he pointed.

“I wasn’t that good of a talker at first, but I’m getting better,” said Young, now 27. In school, he struggled to keep up with the material.

“I didn’t connect the dots at the time,” Byrd said.

Byrd initially was unaware of the lead pipe replacement programs in Memphis but, after researching it, said she feels as though “it’s just a Band-Aid on a gash.”

“You’ve been cut with a machete, and they take a little Band-Aid and put it on top of it,” Byrd said. “Just enough to appease some people, to make them think that they are really something.”

Many experts worry that by replacing only part of the lead line, utility companies could be introducing more lead into the water supply system.

“The lead continues to flake off small particles of lead. So you will continue having lead pipe releasing lead into your drinking water even if you partially replace it with copper,” said Erik Olson, senior strategic director for health and food at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an advocacy group.

Partial replacements can also cause lead levels in water to spike if the pipe is disturbed after the replacement.

“Anytime you disturb the pipe, you shake the ground or somebody jackhammers on the street, that’s going to release lead,” said Chet Kibble Sr., an activist and founder of the Memphis and Shelby County Lead Safe Collaborative.

The EPA understands that partial replacements are not ideal, Pigott said, and has prioritized full replacements of the lines.

Some places in the country have done full lead service line replacement at no cost to homeowners. The utility in Newark <a href="https://www.newarknj.gov/news/mayor-baraka-and-governor-murphy-welcome-vice-president-harris-and-u-s-epa-administrator-regan-to-city-to-highlight-success-of-lead-line-replacement-program" target=_blank>replaced</a> 23,000 lead pipes though millions of dollars in municipal bonds, according to the New Jersey city. The process took less than three years and has been praised by the Biden administration.

But it’s unclear whether other communities can replicate that effort.

In Providence, R.I., the utility provider started by offering partial replacements, switching to full lead line replacements after receiving federal funding.

Still, it has been a confusing process for some. Providence resident Neyda DeJesus first heard that her neighborhood was doing lead pipe replacements at a community meeting. She found out that her pipes were made of lead, and testing confirmed it was seeping into her drinking water.

“I’ve been here three years, and I didn’t know about this. And my water company never informed me,” DeJesus said.

While DeJesus waits for her pipes to be replaced at the end of this year, she plans to use filtered water from her new refrigerator and continue buying bottled water.

In Memphis, residents described inconsistent communication about pipe replacements underway.

Resident Andrew Hogenboom said he was notified weeks before his replacement started. One morning, barricades blocked half of his street as the trucks came out. Utility crews offered him a water filter pitcher to use after the replacement. Utility officials said in an email that they informed customers about the work a month in advance via mail.

But like Perkins, numerous residents said they did not receive warning. To fill the gap, activists and volunteers have tried to spread the word. Each month, the nonprofit environmental justice group Young, Gifted and Green canvasses in low-income communities with known lead service lines to share information about the partial replacements and free water inspections.

<a href="https://www.greenandhealthyhomes.org/person/shawana-ramirez-2/" target=_blank>Sharon Hyde</a>, a Memphis housing program manager for the national group Green and Healthy Homes Initiative, said the utility company has failed to provide clear enough messaging to ensure residents’ safety.

“It’s a very low percentage that understand that they could be on a lead service line and understand that [the replacement] has been done or not,” Hyde said.

That information, some residents said, would provide more clarity and peace of mind.

Margaret Gatewood, who cares for her two grandchildren in North Memphis, worries about what kind of pipes lie beneath her home. The 52-year-old never thought to filter the water she uses to fill her grandson’s sippy cup and make her granddaughter’s formula — last week, she tested her water for lead for the first time.

She wonders whether any contaminated water has contributed to her grandson’s slow development. At nearly 3 years old, he just learned how to walk. He still doesn’t talk. In August, doctors diagnosed him with autism, ruling out genetics as the cause.

As she figures out whether the pipes are made of lead, she grapples with the potential cost of replacing them — a burden she wouldn’t be able to afford on her own.

“I would move out of Memphis, but I ain’t got no money, so I’m just stuck,” Gatewood said. “For people who don’t have any money, we’re just stuck.”

This story has been revised to add additional details about the experience of several residents interviewed and updated with information about water testing and preventive measures from the utility after a spokesperson provided additional comment.

National Association of Black Journalists' Student of the Year,  2022

Gracies Award recipient in the online video host or correspondent category, 2022

Society of Professional Journalists Region 1 winner for covid-19 newspaper, magazine and online coverage, 2020

Hofstra University, BA in Journalism with Minors in Meteorology and Global Studies

Amudalat Ajasa covers extreme weather news for The Washington Post and writes about how extreme weather and climate change are affecting communities in the United States and abroad.

Amudalat Ajasa

Why U.S. still struggles to replace lead pipes 10 years after Flint

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City of Memphis struggles with lead pipes and water company doing patrial replacements. 

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