The Health of our Drinking Water

In 1991, the US Environmental Safety Company (EPA) printed the Lead and Copper Rule (LCR), a regulation to regulate lead and copper in ingesting water. Since then, the LCR has undergone varied revisions, the latest of which is the Lead and Copper Rule Enhancements (LCRI), finalized in October 2024. It establishes a 10-year deadline for municipalities to establish and change their lead ingesting water pipe. Lead sampling and remediation procedures to additional restrict lead publicity can even be modified.

The LCRI additionally requires communities to enhance communication so residents are higher knowledgeable about lead danger in ingesting water, lead pipe location and substitute plans.  

“There was vital uncertainty in the beginning of the [second] Trump administration relating to the place of the incoming EPA management on water high quality rules,” Kenney notes.

The LCRI and the institution of a Nationwide Major Ingesting Water Regulation (NPDWR)—a set of legally enforceable requirements and therapy strategies—for a number of PFAS chemical compounds have been challenged in courtroom by water utility organizations. “The incoming EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin and his group have been then tasked with figuring out whether or not and the way to defend the rulemakings in courtroom or, conversely, the way to rewrite or change the foundations with new variations,” she explains.

The American Water Works Affiliation (AWWA), on behalf of its members, filed a petition for judicial assessment of the LCRI.

“We’re happy with and inspired by the super progress water utilities are making to establish lead service strains, share that info with households, and overcome the authorized and monetary obstacles to substitute,” says AWWA CEO David LaFrance. “Nevertheless, the implementation of the LCRI, in its present type, will not be possible.”

AWWA’s considerations middle across the management and entry of water pipe on non-public property, the price to households in elevated water payments, and the feasibility of communities to finance such infrastructure enhancements, in addition to logistical and personnel challenges.

Zeldin, a former US congressman from New York, was a “vocal supporter of addressing PFAS contamination throughout his time in Congress, and members of his core group have been on the forefront of coverage efforts to enhance water high quality protections,” Kenney provides. “Due to this fact, regardless of the broader mission of the Trump administration to chop rules seen as pointless or burdensome, a whole overhaul of those water high quality rules was not a powerful probability.”

The Trump administration introduced it’s going to defend the LCRI in courtroom and that the EPA would develop “new instruments and data” to help implementation efforts. Particular particulars haven’t but been launched.

In July 2025, Congress reintroduced the Wholesome H2O Invoice (S. 2436/H.R. 4721), a key piece of bipartisan laws supported by WQA. It establishes a grant program by the US Division of Agriculture to help rural communities with testing and therapy for ingesting water.

‘Without end Chemical substances’ Have to Go

One other contaminant has made its method into our ingesting water: per and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). These artificial “without end chemical compounds” are utilized in many industrial and client product functions, together with nonstick cookware and firefighting foams.

“The presence of PFAS compounds in supply water and ingesting water is of accelerating public concern because of their widespread use and environmental persistence,” AWWA notes. 

PFAS break down very slowly and may construct up in folks, animals and the setting over time, the EPA explains. Peer-reviewed scientific research have proven that publicity to sure ranges of PFAS could result in decreased fertility, developmental results or delays in kids, elevated danger of some cancers, the immune system’s diminished potential to struggle an infection, interference with the physique’s pure hormones, and elevated levels of cholesterol or danger of weight problems.

The NPDWR (see above) was established to deal with this concern.

WQA’s Kenney explains: “The preliminary spring 2024 rulemaking established the NPDWR, together with a most contaminant degree of 4 components per trillion, for six PFAS contaminants. For 2 of those contaminants—perfluorooctanoic acid and perfluorooctane sulfonic acid—the core parts of the regulation will probably be maintained, whereas a brand new rulemaking will probably be developed to supply two further years for utilities to adjust to the rules and to determine a federal exemption framework.”

AWWA and the Affiliation of Metropolitan Water Businesses filed a petition for judicial assessment in June 2025 of the EPA’s Remaining PFAS Ingesting Water Rule. Their concern stems from the assumption that the “EPA didn’t depend on the most effective obtainable science and the latest prevalence knowledge and used novel approaches as the premise for parts of the rule. The petitioners imagine the rule underestimates nationwide prices and provides to affordability challenges with out attaining the general public well being outcomes all of us search.”

The EPA has said its intent to withdraw and rethink rules for the remaining 4 contaminants lined within the NPDWR: PFHxS, PFNA, HFPO-DA (Hexafluoropropylene Oxide Dimer Acid, one of many so-called “GenX” chemical compounds) and the Hazard Index combination.