LCRI Compliance Requires Action Now

Abstract

The January 2024 DC Beat encouraged water systems to begin the planning necessary to comply with the then proposed Lead and Copper Rule Improvements (LCRI) rulemaking, anticipating that the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would publish the final rule by Oct. 16, 2024. EPA met that schedule, and the rule's deadlines are now a year closer. Now, with a year to study what it will take to comply with the LCRI, the challenges are beginning to take shape.

Systems can now read the revised regulatory text in the National Archives’ electronic Code of Federal Regulations (eCFR). While still a difficult read, the eCFR allows readers to look at rule revisions in the context of the parts that are unchanged. Systems still trying to understand the LCRI should review the 10 technical fact sheets on key facets of the LCRI, which are available on EPA's website—yes, 10 unique fact sheets that serve as an introduction to the rule requirements. These fact sheets are important in that they explain what EPA intends in the challenging-to-interpret LCRI regulatory text.

At present, there is no published timeline for substantive LCRI implementation guidance. EPA has indicated that its first two priorities are guidance to assist states in submitting their primacy packages and a small-system guide to the LCRI. Most states chose to wait on the LCRI before submitting a primacy package to EPA. Because LCRI guidance is being developed concurrent with a change in presidential administration, there are likely to be delays that stem from the logistics of the transition, probably slowing the availability of detailed guidance on specific rule elements.

Under the Safe Drinking Water Act, states have two years to submit complete primacy packages, unless they seek a two-year extension from EPA. Since the Lead and Copper Rule Revisions (LCRR) were promulgated in 2021, states are running out of time for those submissions, which include regulatory and legislative changes states are making to accomplish rule requirements. Until their primacy packages are approved, states are expected to operate under EPA guidance for the LCRR consistent with early implementation agreements. We should expect similar practice with the LCRI.

As states prepare their primacy applications, they will have to think through the practicalities of LCRI implementation, and water systems need to inform those considerations. At the end of the day, water systems will be the ones implementing the rule—sound state policy begins with state decision makers knowing what is really entailed in complying with the rule requirements. Moreover, we saw with the LCRR that states not effectively involving water systems early unnecessarily complicated LCRR implementation. Utilities would be well advised to do their part to inform the state's process.

AWWA has a long history of supporting both effective corrosion control practice and removal of sources of lead in contact with drinking water. During the development of the LCRI, AWWA shared concerns (and suggested practical alternatives) with EPA about the impact of the rule on water affordability, the feasibility and unintended consequences of the service line replacement requirements in the rule, and the agency's equating water system “access” to lines on private property with “control” of those lines. After EPA did not address these concerns in the final rule, AWWA submitted a petition for judicial review. Such reviews frequently take a year or more, and AWWA will post information at www.awwa.org/lead throughout the process.

Systems should not delay efforts to prepare to comply with the LCRI in light of the judicial review. Regardless of the rule requirements, there are clear benefits from having a sound service line inventory and a plan for replacing lead service lines, and there is good reason to be certain that your corrosion control is performing well. While some of the details of the LCRI are troubling, we share a common goal with EPA and state primacy agencies of protecting the public from lead in water.

As noted in the 2024 column, the Safe Drinking Water Act turned 50 in December 2024. Hopefully, water systems across the United States were able to celebrate that anniversary and are now on a clear path to addressing lead in drinking water for the communities they serve.