Lead in the Water

Looking at EPA estimates of water lines that have lead, by state

In April 2023, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released theirmost extensive report on lead in the drinking water infrastructure. They surveyed 97% of the 3,629 public water systems in the U.S. to gather some estimate of how many service line pipes and storage tank materials might contain lead (this does not include plumbing inside the home, where lead may also be present).

Out of nearly 100 million water service lines in the U.S., the EPA estimates that more than 9 million (almost 10%) are constructed from materials that may include lead. They provided a further breakdown of where these lines are by state, which I have graphed below.

I marked the 15 states that have the largest fractions of lead material in their water lines. So for instance, 12.6% of the 9+ million water lines with lead are in Florida, while hardly any of those water lines are in Alaska or Oregon.

Also, I color coded the states according to the four designated U.S. Census regions. This helps show how lead water infrastructure is not evenly distributed in the U.S. One trend that stands out is that none of the top 15 states are in the West. This fits with the expectation that younger states with newer infrastructure would be less likely to have lead in their water systems. However, there are some very old states in New England in that gray fraction.

The EPA estimates that it will cost $625 billion to replace these water service lines in the next 20 years, which is about how much the U.S. Department of Defense spends every year — so no small chunk of change.

If you live in one of the states denoted on the pie chart, it may be a good idea to drink purified water or invest in a home water filtration system (but maybe not those Brita filters).

Robert Lawrence writes about science and illustrates data. You can find his published work at: www.robertlawrencephd.com