Governor Rick Snyder’s administration is planning to require the replacement of every underground lead service pipe in Michigan within 20 years while delaying by four years a deadline to implement the nation’s toughest lead limit for drinking water in the wake of the Flint lead crisis. Under draft rules environmental regulators want to finalize next year, Michigan’s “action level” for lead in drinking water would gradually drop to 10 parts per billion by 2024. The current federal threshold is 15 parts per billion.
State officials plan to give communities 20 years to replace some 500,000 lead service lines statewide. That’s longer than a 10-year window that was envisioned earlier. The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality is holding a public information session on the draft rules today.
The Associated Press contributed to this report
