His House Bill 534 would require all lead service lines in Ohio — both public and private — be replaced within 15 years of the bill’s effective date.
The bill places the impetus partly on the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, whose director would be tasked with establishing, enforcing and tracking the “Lead Service Line Replacement Program,” as well as on the owners of public water systems, who would be tasked with identifying and overseeing the removal of all lead service lines within their systems.
In total, replacing all of Ohio’s lead water pipes would cost an estimated $4.9 billion, according to Annalisa Rocca, the drinking water manager for the Ohio Environmental Council Action Fund.
The bill does not include fiscal appropriations. Jarrells said he’d like to get much of it funded via the state’s next operating budget and federal infrastructure dollars, in addition to grants and various other revenue streams.
Jarrells made the case that the costs would be worth it, citing a recent study by the Ohio Environmental Council that estimated that every dollar invested in the complete removal of lead pipes would return anywhere from $32 to $45 in public health and economic benefit. The same study estimates that a successful program would enhance Ohio’s economy between $145 billion and $185 billion over the next 15 years.
“But make no mistake, this is more than just an economic issue. This is a moral issue,” Jarrells said. “Lead poisoning disproportionately affects Black and brown communities, low-income families, and those often forgotten in the corridors of our community.”
He shared his childhood struggles with lead poisoning, which he contracted via lead paint and left him needing speech pathology classes from kindergarten to fifth grade.
“We learned that I had high levels of lead in my blood. From that point forward, it became a journey of countless hospital visits (and) sleepless nights for my family,” Jarrells said.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, even low exposures to lead can be detrimental to a child’s health, including damage to the brain and nervous system; slowed growth and development; learning and behavior problems; and hearing and speech problems — which can result in lower IQ, decreased ability to pay attention, and academic under-performance.
There’s been significant government momentum to reduce lead exposure. In early 2023, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signed into law a $150 million appropriation for “lead prevention and mitigation” in Ohio. In late 2023, the Biden Administration floated plans to strengthen the Federal Lead and Copper Rule, which would have required public water systems to replace every lead line in the country within 10 years with a $15 billion appropriation attached.
There’s a considerable logistical hurdle inherent in replacing lead lines, according to Ohio EPA media coordinator Dina Pierce in early 2023: “The only way to know for sure what material a line is made of is to dig it up.”
Since 2016, Ohio has required owners of public water systems to “identify areas that are known to contain or likely to contain lead service lines” and report that information to the state. The publicly accessible schematics of Dayton’s maps in 2022 show a mix of confirmed lead service lines, confirmed-non lead service lines, and lines with unknown lead statuses.
A previous Dayton Daily News report highlighted one Wright View resident who lived in her home for 60 years and was not aware her house had a service line that was partially made out of lead.
So far, H.B. 534 has not had a hearing since it was introduced in mid-May. The Ohio General Assembly has been on summer break since the end of June.
State Rep. Tom Young, R-Washington Twp., told this news outlet that, to his understanding, there are already sufficient programs in place that pave the way for the quick and gradual removal of lead pipes, including over a billion dollars in grant-like funding handed down in the federal 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
“I’m unsure what the legislation does over and above what the EPA is (already) doing,” Young said.
Rep. Andrea White, R-Kettering, who has also crafted legislation to mitigate lead exposure, told this news outlet that she “look(s) forward to working across the aisle to find more funding and educational solutions to protect our children and families from the devastating consequences of lead poisoning.”
Rose Lounsbury, an Oakwood Democrat who hopes to unseat White in a competitive House District 36 race this November, told this news outlet that the lead poisoning crisis in Flint, Michigan, has underscored the importance of keeping up with public water lines.
“When you see how devastating that is for a community, being unable to drink the water, as a mother I can’t even fathom that,” Lounsbury said. “Anything we can do to prevent something like (Flint) from happening in Ohio is something that I would support.”
Note: This story was updated to reflect that Lounsbury resides in Oakwood.
Staff writer Sydney Dawes contributed to this report.
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