Portland Pursues Alternative to Compliance with EPA Lead Levels

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Portland Pursues Alternative to Compliance with EPA Lead Levels

In Nineteen Ninety One (1991) the United States Environmental Protection Agency published the lead and copper rule, to minimize nurotoxins in water.

The rule established a maximum contaminant level goal of zero for lead in drinking water.

The Portland Water Bureau has never met that goal and is rolling out an education plan as an alternative compliance method.

For more, KBOO’s Joe Meyer spoke with Portland water activist Dee White.

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The Portland water bureau is currently spending a half a billion dollars to build a treatment plant in Bull Run.

According to the water bureau, this construction work was necessitated by the EPA regulation known as LT2.

According to water activists at the time, the regulation didn’t make sense for our protected Bull Run water supply and that the city hall could have easily substituted water testing for costly and unnecessary construction projects.

In fact, Rochester New York succeeded in substituting testing for costly infrastructure projects and, still to this day, enjoy the benfits of open reservoirs. 

   In sharp contrast to the ready complicity with LT2, Commisioner Fritz of the water bureau is rolling out an alternative to the EPA’s Lead and Copper Rule.

I asked water activist Dee White what she expects the water bureau to do.

 

That was Portland Water activist Dee White.

Commissioner Fritz’s water Bureau is pursuing an alternative compliance to the EPA’s Lead and Copper regulation:  education will be substituted for bring lead levels into compliance.

Meanwhile, Portand water consumers are paying a half a billion dollars for unnecessary construction at Bull Run.

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