42,000 D.C. homes have lead pipes. Can the city replace them in ten years?

LaTricea Adams remembers the moment clearly. It was April 2016 and she had just returned to D.C. with a group of schoolchildren from a service trip in Flint. Just a couple years earlier, contaminated water in the Michigan city had doubled – and in some cases tripled – the incidence of elevated blood lead levels in children. 

“Two to three weeks after we got back to D.C., those same children got notices at home from school saying there was lead in their school drinking water,” Adams, who is president, chief executive officer, and founder of the nonprofit environmental justice group Young, Gifted and Green, told The 51st. The elevated lead levels had been detected at three different elementary schools in Northeast and Southeast D.C. While city officials assured parents that the contaminated water sources had been shut off, the incident sowed mistrust in the city’s ability to protect residents from exposure. The news hit Adams “in the gut.”

“I was already pissed about what was going on in Flint," she says. "Like, dang, this is right here in our nation's capital, it’s supposed to be the land of progressive everything, but we literally have lead in our school drinking water."

In October of this year, partially in response to the Flint water crisis and the work of environmental advocates like Adams, the EPA announced new lead and copper rule improvements mandating that cities like D.C. change out their lead service lines in a decade. With more than 42,000 in the district, accomplishing this will be no small feat. According to DC Water’s chief communications and stakeholder engagement officer Kirsten Williams, the city has changed out approximately 7,000 lead service lines since 2019. But with a new deadline looming, DC Water will need to step up its game. Community activists, environmental organizations, and the city itself have teamed up to reach residents from all wards – motivated in part by what many say is a history of sluggish and inequitable action on the issue.

“We know how dangerous lead is, and we know how to fix it, and we know that these problems exist. Solve it,” Adams says. “It’s not like this novel situation where we're like, oh my God, what do we do? We know exactly what to do.”

D.C.’s Flint-like crisis

Cities, states, and countries often suffer from amnesia. That may be why many residents of D.C. might not know that in the early 2000s, D.C. suffered its own lead crisis. 

“If you talk to anyone that had little kids in the District in the early 2000s they will remember the day that the story broke on the front page of The Washington Post,” Valerie Baron, National Policy Director & Senior Attorney for the Safe Water Initiative at the National Resources Defense Council told The 51st.

In 2000, D.C.’s water utility changed their disinfectant process, which led to corrosion of lead pipes. As a result, thousands of homes in D.C. tested far above the EPA limit of lead in drinking water, which is 15 parts per billion. Some homes even tested as high as 50 or 300 parts per billion, resulting in tens of thousands of children and pregnant women being exposed to lead. An environmental engineer named Marc Edwards who studied both crises said that D.C.’s problem was “20 to 30 times larger” than Flint’s — which the city did not refute. 

Children, infants, and fetuses are most at risk for lead exposure, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). At that age, exposure to lead through drinking water can contribute to behavior and learning problems, hyperactivity, slowed growth, hearing problems, and anemia. If fetuses are exposed it can cause reduced growth or premature birth. Adults are also at risk for cardiovascular effects, increased blood pressure, reproductive problems, and decreased kidney function.

The use of lead pipes and fittings was phased out by the 1980s. The city began rectifying the problem by replacing the public side of the lines. The burden of replacing the pipes under private residences, however, often fell on individual homeowners. In D.C., this means that Black and low-income neighborhoods, where more people rented or didn’t have money for the repairs, haven't been able to replace the lead pipes as quickly. Advocates like Baron worry that with many of these lead pipes still in the ground, these families and neighborhoods face disproportionate risk of another crisis.

“The story of lead and drinking water is very much a story of racial justice,” says Baron. “It's something that impacts families and communities in the long run and pushes people away from their highest potential in life.”

Getting the word out

Today, residents of D.C. see the messaging everywhere. From yard signs on street corners to full-panel advertisements at bus stops, it is hard to miss that the city is working to get the word out about lead service line replacements. Last week alone, D.C. is mailing out 40,000 letters to residents. The city is even running advertisements in movie theaters.

“This is not something we want to shy away from talking about,” Williams says. “Even if you don't have a lead service line, we want you to understand why we're doing this and the importance of it.”

In an attempt not to repeat the mistakes of the past, DC Water is working with community organizations – including Young, Gifted and Green, the National Resources Defense Council, the Campaign to Reduce Lead Exposure and Childhood Asthma, and Interfaith Power and Light DMV – to bridge information gaps, especially in Ward 7 and Ward 8.

“We're collaborating with them, which is a good thing,” Robin Lewis, director for Climate Equity at Interfaith Power and Light DMV told The 51st. “When we go to congregations, and we talk to folks, they're free to ask questions. Once you explain the dangers of lead and explain their service line might be lead, and that means their family is ingesting lead unless they have a filtration system, and the danger of that, I think people get it. Nobody wants that.”

A misconception that organizers are trying to bust is that everyone needs to personally pay for the replacement of their lead service line. While the cost to the city is high — anywhere from $20,000-$30,000 per home, Williams says, legislation passed in 2018 means that the cost to homeowners is much lower today – or even fully covered.

Homeowners are only in charge of the private side of the line, which often runs underneath their front lawn and under their building. Replacing this costs anywhere from $2,500 to $4,000, but for most residents it is free or greatly reduced. Thanks to the Lead Pipe Replacement Assistance Program, if DC Water is already planning on tearing up your whole block to replace the public lead lines, they'll knock on your door to ask if they can change out your private side lines. In this case, it will be completely free, regardless of income.

If there aren’t lead replacements scheduled for two years, property owners can enroll in the Voluntary Lead Service Pipe Replacement Program, but they may be personally responsible for the $2,500-$4,000. Essentially, Williams explains, if residents want to initiate replacement sooner than the city plans to do it they may be on the hook; if they don’t mind waiting, however, it will be free.

To find out if you have a lead service line, click here to see D.C. 's map, which also outlines what your building is eligible for in terms of replacement. According to Williams, the utility advises customers that the process can result in their water being shut off for up to eight hours.

Whether they city can get it all done in 10 years depends on a lot of factors, activists say, including what a new federal administration will mean for the EPA and the District.

One of the biggest hurdles is that the city needs property owner permission to change out the private side. Thus far, getting in touch with absentee landlords has been a proven challenge for many cities across the country. Some cities, like Newark, New Jersey, have overridden this barrier with laws that grant renters the authority to give permission. Advocates like Adams, Baron, and Lewis hope the D.C. Council will do the same.

“With the recent election, I just pray that all the work that went into the new rule is safe, but it also gives me a little bit of anxiety,” Adams told The 51st. “I’m hoping and praying that we will maintain this momentum to make our water lead free.”