Article Summary –
President Joe Biden announced a $76 million investment to replace lead pipes in North Carolina, as part of a nationwide $3 billion effort to remove up to 1.7 million lead pipes and improve public health. The funding is part of Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which has already allocated $250 million to North Carolina for similar projects, including $4 million to Wilmington for 325 pipes. Additionally, Biden addressed efforts to eliminate PFAS chemicals, which have severely impacted the Cape Fear Region, emphasizing the administration’s commitment to ensuring clean drinking water and highlighting the dangers these substances pose, especially to children.
The president announced $76 million in funding to replace lead pipes in North Carolina, and highlighted the administration’s efforts to eliminate PFAS chemicals that have devastated the Cape Fear Region.
President Joe Biden visited Wilmington, announcing $76 million in infrastructure funding to replace lead pipes contaminating North Carolina’s drinking water.
“For generations, water was delivered through lead service pipelines, connecting the main waterline to homes and schools. These lead lines leak poisonous toxins into our water. The science is clear: lead service lines pose severe health risks,” Biden said at Wilmington Convention Center.
The funding is part of a $3 billion nationwide effort to replace up to 1.7 million of the 9 million lead pipes across the country. The EPA estimates around 300,000 of those pipes are in North Carolina.
This latest investment means North Carolina has now received $250 million for lead pipe removal under Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, signed in 2021.
The City of Wilmington received $4 million to replace an estimated 325 lead pipes.
EPA Administrator Michael Regan, former Secretary of North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, joined Biden on the trip. He anticipates all lead pipes can be removed within a decade.
“We believe that we can get 100% lead pipe removal done within a 10-year window in this country,” Regan told reporters.
Wilmington and Cape Fear will benefit
Biden was introduced by Paris Pugh, a second-grade teacher at Bradley Creek Elementary School.
“Recently, we discovered that one of our school’s water fountains was contaminated with lead. Funding from the Biden administration helped resolve the issue,” Pugh said.
“Funding from their American Rescue Plan helped to replace our water fountain,” she explained.
Sixty North Carolina communities benefited from the lead pipe removal funded by the American Rescue Plan.
On Thursday, Biden explained how lead pipe toxins are especially harmful to children.
“In children, they stunt growth, slow learning, and cause lasting brain damage. One study shows, when you reduce lead exposure for children, their test scores improve in school…,” he said.
Eliminating toxic drinking water
Biden also discussed the administration’s effort to tackle the PFAS crisis.
The Cape Fear region has long been plagued by toxic drinking water. In 2016, a study from NC State revealed ‘forever chemicals’ like PFAS had been dumped into the Cape Fear River for decades from the Chemours plant in Fayetteville, affecting 2 million North Carolinians.
“My administration issued its first ever PFAS standard to get those dangerous chemicals out of our drinking water… Communities across the Cape Fear Watershed know too well why this matters,” Biden said. “As a consequence of PFAS, you’ve seen aggressive cancers emerge in that area. It’s gone so far that we’re advising and warning, you can’t eat the fish in the same water that you drink.”
Meeting with families of the officers killed in Charlotte
Before his Wilmington speech, Biden and Governor Roy Cooper met with the families of the four police officers killed in Charlotte on Monday while serving a warrant. Eight others were wounded.
“We pray for their loved ones and those left behind. I met their children, their wives, and their mothers and fathers. We pray for the recovery of the brave wounded as well,” Biden said. Every “time an officer puts on that shield and walks out the door, a family member wonders whether they’re going to get that call until they come home.”
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