Biden’s Historic Ruling On Lead Pipes Will Save Black Families

This week, on Oct. 8th, President Biden announced a historic ruling on environmental racism issued by the Environmental Protection Agency: Water utilities across the nation had ten years left to replace “virtually every lead pipe in the country, imposing the strictest limits to date on a neurotoxin that is particularly dangerous to infants and children,” The New York Times reported Tuesday.

The paper reported that the ruling  “… replaces less-stringent regulations, adopted during the Trump administration, on lead in drinking water.” It came ten years after the deadly disaster known as Michigan’s Flint Water Crisis began in April 2014.

That year, the state’s then-governor, Republican Rick Synder, switched the majority-Black city’s clean water supply from Lake Huron to the corrosive Flint River. He claimed it was a cost-saving measure.

If it was ever that, it not only did not save money but came at a price that cannot be quantified: despite the official claim that “only” twelve people died as a result of the lead from water pipes that were corroded by the Flint River waters were so corrosive, evidence strongly suggests more than 100 people died. They contracted Legionnaires’ Disease from the bacteria that thrived in the toxic water foisted upon them. Most of those people who perished were Black.

Flint was a majority Black city. In fact, across the United States, racist housing policies have ensured that of all groups, Black people are the most at risk of exposure to lead poisoning and its multiple, often enough deadly, consequent harms.

Justice denied

In the wake of Flint’s human-created and sustained disaster, Rick Synder was criminally charged in 2021. He became Michigan’s first governor to hold the distinction of being to legal account for an action undertaken in his official role.

But in 2022, a judge dismissed the case and ordered all records associated with Synder’s arrest destroyed despite the findings of exhaustive investigations by news outlets, most notably the 18-month dive undertaken by the journalists at Vice.

Its report, published in 2020, uncovered overwhelming evidence that Synder knew early on that the switch he made was killing people. Mostly Black people. And he covered it up.

From Vice:

“Hundreds of confidential pages of documents obtained by VICE, along with emails and interviews, reveal a coordinated, five-year cover-up overseen by Snyder and his top officials to prevent news of Flint’s deadly water from going public—while there was still time to save lives…

All told, [the decisions Synder made]…may have killed at least 115 people in 2014 and 2015, and potentially more whose pneumonia wasn’t officially considered Legionnaires’ disease, the illness caused by Legionella.

In addition to the outbreak, Flint’s water supply was contaminated with lead and other heavy metals, harmful bacteria, carcinogens, and other toxic components. This wreaked havoc on Flint residents, leaving them with a laundry list of illnesses, including kidney and liver problems, severe bone and muscle pain, gastrointestinal problems, loss of teeth, autoimmune diseases, neurological deficiencies, miscarriages, Parkinson’s disease, severe fatigue, seizures, and volatile mood disorders.”

For Black people, nowhere clean, nowhere safe

Segregated into the oldest and worst housing, no group in the US faces a higher risk of exposure to lead poisoning than Black people–and particularly Black children.

Lead is a heavy metal that occurs naturally in the earth’s crust. Its density, malleability, and resistance to corrosion once made it seem valuable in the making of various products, from plumbing to batteries, to paint. For instance, in plumbing, lead was once favored for its malleability, which allowed for easy shaping and sealing of pipes and fittings.

But that belief ended nearly 50 years ago when its toxicity was better understood. The use of lead in these products virtually came to a stop by the late 1970s. Yet there was little that forced its removal from all the places it had been used.

Racism and redlining sequestered poor Black people into those places nationwide in older, less tended-to housing.

In Flint, in 2014, the water that flowed through the housing in a city that was primarily Black and poor had a devastating impact on its 99,000 residents, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), For 18 consecutive months, nearly 9,000 children were forcibly exposed to lead-contaminated water from pipes that were corroded and thus made toxic with the lead that lined those pipes.

This happened with what evidence showed was Synder’s consent: exposing human beings to a material linked to serious health issues in both children and adults–a material particularly devastating for children.

Lead poisoning exposes children to delays in puberty, behavioral and attention problems, hearing loss, stunted growth, and reduced cognitive performance. Any or all of these can lead to declines in IQ and academic achievement, Medical News Today noted.

There is no safe level of lead in blood for children.

Beyond Flint: Black children remain in particular danger

North Carolina is a state where lead exposure has had detrimental effects on Black children. A 2022 study conducted by a research team from Duke University, Rice University, and the University of Notre Dame analyzed nearly 26,000 children in North Carolina by linking detailed birth records with lead screening and standardized testing data. The study revealed that non-Hispanic Black children had higher median blood lead levels compared to their non-Hispanic white counterparts, with over 80% of the Black children experiencing economic disadvantage.

Additionally, the study found that Black children–more likely to live in areas with significant racial residential segregation both at birth and during standardized testing periods–experience declines in reading test scores as blood lead levels–and racial residential segregation– increased. Similarly, math test scores fell as blood lead levels rose, leading researchers to conclude that Black children are disproportionately affected by both lead exposure and segregation, highlighting the need for targeted interventions to address these interconnected issues.

The effects of lead exposure on adults are equally alarming. Exposure to lead can lead to various health issues, including nerve disorders, fertility problems, decreased kidney function, and cardiovascular complications. The burden of disease caused by lead exposure is significant. The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) estimates that over 1.5 million deaths worldwide were attributed to lead exposure in 2021, primarily due to cardiovascular effects. Furthermore, lead exposure was estimated to account for more than 33 million years lost to disability (disability-adjusted life years, or DALYs) globally in the same year.

As election season approaches, voters must advocate for the urgent removal of toxic lead pipes—something Vice President Kamala Harris has long supported. If elected, it will be her job to implement Biden’s ruling, but she’ll need the support of lawmakers who are able to put all human lives above petty partisan politics.

The children, above all,  are counting on the adults to behave like adults.