Over the last decade, Providence’s water utility has been working to replace lead pipes. But the way they’re doing it disproportionately raises the risk of lead exposure for Black, Latinx and Native American residents, community groups allege.
In a complaint filed with the Environmental Protection Agency, five advocacy groups claim Providence Water violated EPA regulations and the Civil Rights Act because it requires property owners to pay to replace pipes running from the curb to the home.
According to a report by the Government Accountability Office, more than a third of these connecting pipes, known as service lines, in Providence are made of lead, and people of color, renters, and families in poverty are more likely to live in homes connected to lead pipes.
Lead pipes can contaminate drinking water, which can cause developmental delays in children, especially babies drinking formula, and Providence Water’s lead levels routinely exceed the EPA’s benchmark for action. The utility serves Providence, North Providence, Cranston, Johnston, and East Smithfield.
“By requiring homeowners and landlords to pay to receive the benefits of a full [lead service line] replacement… Providence Water creates disproportionate health impacts. This is true because Black, Latinx, and Native American residents of Providence Water’s service area tend to have less of an ability to pay for a full [lead service line] replacement and are more likely to rent their homes compared to their white and often wealthier counterparts,” the complaint states.
When the line is partially removed, it can raise the level of lead in the water for several months.
The groups – Childhood Lead Action Project, Direct Action for Rights and Equality, South Providence Neighborhood Association, National Center for Healthy Housing, and Environmental Defense Fund – cite evidence that more than 40 percent of participants in a zero-interest loan program to finance lead pipe replacement were in the city’s wealthiest zip code, which is home to under 10 percent of the population of the area served by Providence Water.
The groups ask EPA to direct the utility to offer full pipe replacement at no cost to customers, and track the impact of lead replacement programs on residents by race.
“Providence Water takes the issue of lead at our customers taps extremely seriously,” the utility said in a statement. “In addition, Providence Water is working closely with the Rhode Island Infrastructure Bank to maximize federal infrastructure bill funding to remove lead service lines. This program will be designed to prioritize lead service line replacements in disadvantaged areas throughout our service area.”
Devra Levy, an advocate with the Childhood Lead Action Project, spoke with The Public’s Radio about the complaint. The interview has been edited for length.
Devra Levy: So when ProvWater conducts their routine water main replacements, which they’ve been doing for a number of years around their service area, they also have the opportunity to replace the service line, which is the pipe that runs from the water main in the street to each individual house. They reach out to property owners as they’re doing these replacements, and offer a loan to pay for the other half of the pipe that runs from the property line to the house. But if property owners either can’t afford or choose not to take that loan, for whatever reason, they go ahead with the partial replacement. So they cut the pipe in half, and they replaced half of it, which is not good for two reasons, the first of which, obviously, they’re still leaving half of the lead pipe in the ground, and the second being that partial replacement can actually cause a spike in lead levels in the water. So it can actually make the water more dangerous to drink.
Sofie Rudin: And Childhood Lead Action Project is one of five organizations saying that this way of replacing pipes is discriminatory. Why is this discriminatory?
Levy: So this means that people who can’t afford to take out a loan or renters whose landlords choose not to take out a loan, still have half of a lead pipe that they’re drinking their water through, and are seeing those higher levels of lead and water due to the partial replacement. And we’re saying this is discriminatory under the Civil Rights Act, because as we lay out in the complaint, using data from ProvWater’s service area, lower income folks and renters are more likely to be Black, Latinx and Native American folks in that area. So what it means is effectively, people who can afford to take out the loan, who are disproportionately white, get access to cleaner drinking water than those who can’t.
Rudin: We know this problem isn’t new. The lead pipes are old. What prompted you to file this complaint now?
Levy: That’s a good question. I mean, this practice has been going on for a long time. And we’ve been vocal since the beginning about our opposition to it and our demand for full lead pipe replacement. I think one of the reasons it’s timely right now, in addition to just sort of it’s been going on too long, is also because there’s a lot of funding available to do this project. While the complaint is focused on municipal level ProvWater, we know that through the infrastructure bill that was passed, Rhode Island has over $100 million actually specifically allocated for lead service line replacement, which is really great. It’s the most amount of money we’ve had for any lead remediation, maybe ever. It’s still not going to be enough. So we want to see that money that’s already there, spent in the right way, which is part of what we are wanting to emphasize about this complaint: in the past, when the projects like this have been done, they’ve been done in ways that aren’t actually helping everyone, and that are actually causing more gaps in who’s exposed to lead and who isn’t. So we want to see ProvWater working on this, but we also want to see the state taking some leadership on making sure this happens.
Rudin: I imagine ProvWater might say, you know, we can’t replace lines on private property without property owner buy-in. Do you think that’s fair?
Levy: Well, I think property owner buy-in would still be a part of what we’re asking for. What we’re asking is for ProvWater to not ask the property owner to pay for the project. No one should have to pay for the right to clean and safe drinking water. We’ve seen this happen in other places. One of the best examples is actually in North Providence. A few years ago, North Providence used city funding to be able to give grants to property owners in order to be able to replace the full lead service line rather than loans. And they’ve been able to replace almost all of the lead pipes in the city. And another another example is from Newark. Newark is on track to replace almost 20,000 lead service lines over the next couple years totally for free, without any payment from the property owner. So this is possible. Those are just two examples. It’s happened in a lot of other places. Providence can be doing better and should be doing better.
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Resources:
- Learn more about the health effects of lead in drinking water
- Check if your home has a lead service line
- Learn about Providence Water’s 0% interest loan program for lead service line replacement
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Reporter Sofie Rudin can be reached at srudin@thepublicsradio.org
