Shortening the pipe replacement project could create another complicated situation for Congress, said Keefe, who spoke with Bigley and Harrington in a lead pipe webinar this week sponsored by E2.
“I don’t want to be a member of Congress trying to figure out who gets clean water and who doesn’t, but that’s going to happen if we don’t fully fund it,” Keefe said.
Environmental groups argue that all lead pipes in the country should be removed because each of them poses a potential hazard. While they’re all lined with a material designed to prevent lead from entering the drinking water supply, changes in the water supply can cause corrosion – and this can lead to lead poisoning for anyone who drinks the water. And lead poisoning can cause behavioral and learning problems in children, and heart, kidney and reproductive problems in adults.
Buffalo’s freeway relics – including the Skyway, Scajaquada, and Kensington – could finally be repaired under President Joe Biden’s $ 2.25 trillion infrastructure plan.
In Buffalo, the Brown government has been fighting this threat for five years. The city has imposed stricter lead standards than the federal government and is also working on replacing lead pipes itself.
“We replaced 400 of them last year, but we still have tens of thousands to go,” said Oluwole A. McFoy, chairman of the Buffalo Water Board, in April.
Congress should go all the way and fund the replacement of all those lead water pipes, said MP Brian Higgins, a Democrat from Buffalo. He said the cut in funding for lead pipe removal was emblematic of the bipartisan infrastructure package that Biden’s original American Jobs plan reduced from $ 2 trillion to about $ 1 trillion.
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