A decade ago, about 100,000 Flint residents were exposed to lead-contaminated drinking water. The Flint water crisis has become a stark reminder of the devastating consequences of negligence and allowing pipe materials that have been banned since 1988 to fester in our water systems. 

If this catastrophe had a bright side, it’s that it led to the revision of Michigan's Lead and Copper Rule in 2018, the nation's most protective regulation aimed at reducing lead exposure in drinking water. 

Safe Water Engineering, with University of Michigan Water Center - Graham Sustainability Institute, developed a suite of resources to help local elected officials understand the Michigan Lead and Copper Rule when it was revised in 2018.

Most Michigan water utilities that have lead service lines are required to collect Lead and Copper samples every year between June 1 and September 30. The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) starts posting data here when they find water utilities that exceed the lead action level (15 ppb) at the end of each sampling period.

"Removing Michigan’s Lead Water Service Lines: Economic Savings, Health Benefits, And Improved Health Equity” published in Health Affairs, August 2023 

Kudos to NRDC and Politico for drawing attention to the fact that current, much-needed lead service line replacement funding allocations aren’t targeted to states that need it most. Inside EPA has also been covering these concerns. The historic $15 billion for lead service line replacement may not go as far as it could if not allocated effectively.

Michigan revised its Lead and Copper Rule (LCR) in 2018 to include a new sampling protocol intended to better measure the amount of lead in water from lead service lines. Water utilities completed their first round of sampling using this new protocol in 2019. To help determine the impact of new sampling protocols, my team and I conducted an analysis of the first year of sampling results which was recently published in an open access article in the journal Water Science.