Michigan Set to Enact Nation’s Strongest Measures to Protect Kids from Lead in Schools and Childcare Centers

LANSING, MI – Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer is expected to sign into law landmark legislation that sets the national standard for protecting kids from lead in drinking water at schools and in childcare centers by requiring these facilities to install and maintain lead-removing filters for all designated drinking water outlets. The legislation is based on NRDC’s Filter First approach, and it addresses a major gap in the nation’s lead in drinking water protections. The legislation is also the most cost-effective and health protective approach in the nation. 

The approach asserts that the best method to address lead in drinking water in schools is to filter first rather than try to test every water outlet in the school multiple times every year to determine if there is episodic lead contamination. 

“Michigan will become the first state to implement a solution that actually gets lead out of drinking water in schools and childcare centers while delivering dramatic cost savings,” said Joan Leary Matthews, Senior Attorney with NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council). “The state has enacted landmark legislation that is the national model for protecting kids from lead in schools. These laws go straight to the solution by proactively requiring the installation of lead-removing filters without first testing for lead that will inevitably be found. As the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency finalizes an updated version of the Lead and Copper Rule and President Biden’s Administration follows through on promises to replace every lead pipe within the next decade, the agency should incorporate Filter First in its measures designed to address lead in schools and childcare centers drinking water.”  

In 2019, the Michigan House and Senate took the first step to address lead in school drinking water when a bipartisan team of lawmakers in both chambers introduced two initial Filter First bills.  

About Michigan’s Landmark Filter First Law 

The Filter First law: 

• Requires schools and childcare centers to install lead-removing filtered drinking water fountains and, in certain situations, on tap filters, and ensure that non-filtered outlets are removed or designated as not safe for consumption. 
• Mandates post-filtration drinking water testing to ensure the filters are working. No pre-filtration testing is required, thus ensuring dollars are used to solve the problem by installing protective barriers between kids and lead.
• Saves Michigan roughly $331 million with Filter First over ten years compared to the price of testing and chasing lead in school and childcare center plumbing.
• Creates a fund in the Department of Treasury to assist schools and daycares with filtered water stations and filter acquisition and installation, maintenance, and post-filtration sampling costs. 

Federal Lead and Copper Rule Revisions

The bills’ passage will come at a crucial time for safe drinking water regulations nationwide as the EPA is readying updates to a revised Lead and Copper Rule to address the serious shortcomings in this ineffective regulation. These revisions will be proposed this fall and completed by October 2024. 

NRDC has urged the EPA to overhaul the Lead and Copper Rule and replace the complex, weak “treatment technique” with a simple and directly enforceable maximum contaminant level (MCL) for lead of 5 parts per billion (ppb) at the tap. Alternatively, the agency could mandate full replacement of all lead service lines at utility expense in 10 years, better monitoring, a 5 ppb lead action level, and stronger corrosion treatment requirements to minimize lead exposure. And to encourage a filter-first approach, the revised rule should require utilities to either do comprehensive, ongoing testing of every drinking water outlet in the schools and childcare centers, which would not be a prudent use of dollars, or assist the schools with installing filtration stations. This will create the incentive for utilities to collaborate with their schools to fix the problem with filtration stations rather than merely test and possibly act later. 

To learn more about the Michigan bills read this blog from Cyndi Roper, Michigan Senior Policy Advocate at NRDC. 

NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) is an international nonprofit environmental organization with more than 3 million members and online activists. Established in 1970, NRDC uses science, policy, law and people power to confront the climate crisis, protect public health and safeguard nature. NRDC has offices in New York City, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Bozeman, MT, Beijing and Dehli (an office of NRDC India Pvt. Ltd). Visit us at www.nrdc.org and follow us on Twitter @NRDC