The Environmental Protection Agency just lately accredited an nearly $700 million plan to take away lead water pipes within the Denver, Colorado space. The company has referred to as the native water utility’s efforts an “example” to different utilities across the nation seeking to substitute their previous lead water traces, the Associated Press reported.

The push to quickly substitute previous lead water traces was a response to the excessive ranges of lead present in Denver’s consuming water about decade in the past. In 2020, metropolis officers promised to switch between 64,000 and 84,000 lead pipes in 15 years. Since then, native utility Denver Water has dug up 15,000 lead pipes, which is about 18% to 23% of the lead traces within the metropolis, The Denverite reported.

“Denver Water’s approach to tackling lead in drinking water has been remarkable and an example for other communities across the country,” EPA Regional Administrator KC Becker said in a statement. “Thanks to new funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law the utility’s customers can expect an even faster lead service line replacement schedule delivering health protections for children and adults across the Denver area.”

The metropolis’s urgency is justified—lead is a neurotoxin and even low ranges of publicity are trigger for public well being concern. And although it may hurt anybody, it’s particularly harmful for creating kids and infants, as a result of “growing bodies absorb more lead than adults do and their brains and nervous systems are more sensitive to the damaging effects of lead,” in keeping with the EPA. The overexposure results in intellectual disabilities and conduct problems that would have been prevented. Denver Water’s efforts have yielded some outcomes, though the utility remains to be engaged on eradicating lead water traces. The newest water checks have proven that lead ranges within the metropolis’s water have now dropped under the federal restrict for publicity, in keeping with the Associated Press. The metropolis now usually checks water for lead, and the water utility has given households free water filters whereas it continues changing lead traces with copper pipes, in keeping with The Denverite.

Denver shouldn’t be the one U.S. metropolis that’s grappling with a lead drawback. Just this September, an investigation from The Guardian discovered that one in 20 faucet water checks in Chicago had lead ranges at or above U.S. authorities limits. This meant 1,000 out of the 24,000 households examined had lead ranges increased than really helpful. The EPA says adults ought to solely be exposed to 15 parts per billion (ppb) of lead and that there isn’t any protected publicity stage for kids.

But in contrast to Denver, Chicago has been sluggish to satisfy its promise of changing lead water traces. More than two years after metropolis officers promised to start eradicating lead pipes, solely 0.5% of the greater than 400,000 lead service traces within the metropolis have been changed, WTTW Chicago reported this September.