The U.S Environmental Protection Agency’s Drinking Water State Revolving Fund provides low-interest loans to state and local drinking water infrastructure projects. The EPA provides an allotment for each state based on its Drinking Water Needs Survey that is conducted every four years, and states in turn provide a 20% funding match. From 2013 to 2018, the DWSRF program water pipes grew from just over $2 billion in 2013 to nearly $3 billion in 2018, providing loans of increasing sizes to states. Federal appropriations for the DWSRF helped boost the size of the program from FY17 to FY20. In 2018, the median size of a loan was about $1 million, and one quarter of the projects were co-funded with another source, including funding from the U.S.
Some material-related trends have emerged in examinations of specific contamination routes, however. Pipe material-related factors beyond those in the principles document can also contaminate drinking water. In March the anticipated surge of lead-pipe-replacement work prompted a group of 19 health and environmental advocacy organizations headed by the nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council to publish a set of guiding water pipes principles for lead-line replacement. Amid numerous recommendations related to community involvement, safety and economic justice, the document takes a stand against swapping in pipes made of plastic and calls for copper lines instead. Polypropylene pipes are another good choice and are less expensive than copper pipes. Polypropylene is a durable, rigid plastic with less likelihood of chemical leaching compared to PEX.
Utilities are also developing innovative smart water technologies such as leak detection, seismic resilient pipes, smart water quality monitoring, and real time data sensors, just to name a few. These technologies improve resilience by allowing utilities to respond to changing climate conditions, improve efficiency of operations by reducing water losses, and deliver real-time data that allows for interactive decision-making. Kansas City, Mo., says there are no more known lead pipes that it’s responsible for, but says it doesn’t know what materials are on the customer-owned end of the line.
For a municipality struggling with a dwindling tax base, those savings were huge. JM Eagle declined to comment but has previously said the litigation was based on “scurrilous allegations” by a disgruntled former employee. Formosa Plastics, a Taiwanese industrial conglomerate that was its parent company at the time, agreed to pay $22.5 million in a settlement with municipalities and other government agencies in California. Opponents of the industry-backed bills, including water pipes many municipal engineers, say they are a thinly veiled effort by the plastics industry to muscle aside traditional pipe suppliers. The effects of climate change are already “far-reaching and worsening” throughout the United States, posing risks to virtually every aspect of society, according to a draft report being circulated by the federal government. The United States has warmed 68 percent faster than Earth as a whole over the past 50 years, the draft report said.
Fat can bongs usually hold more water and smoke than your average straight tube and typically have a neck that is skinnier than the rest of the body. Scientists are just starting to understand the effect of plastic on the quality and safety of drinking water, including what sort of chemicals can leach into the water from the pipes themselves, or from surrounding groundwater contamination. Studies have shown that toxic pollutants like benzene and toluene from spills and contaminated soil can permeate certain types of plastic pipes as they age. A 2013 review of research on leaching from plastic pipe identified more than 150 contaminants migrating from plastic pipes into drinking water.