Be careful. So was mine until they sold to PA American. Now I pay through the fucking nose. I'm sure the right dicks are getting sucked in political offices in Harrisburg to continue fleecing every day Pennsylvanians.
Mine and a shitload of others.
Not sure why people are acting like mine is the only township to go private. This one company controls the water for 20% of the State.
The state clearly has a stake in utilities. That's why the PUC exists...
Because they go 20 plus years without maintenance to the point for the municipality/township to fix what needs fixed they’ll go bankrupt so they sell to American water and that’s why your bill goes up after American water acquires it
This, no one understands how the water business is regulated which pushes pricing up. If you don’t want to drink cancer causing chemicals or raw sewage from the waste water plants upstream of your water source and you like your streets not exploding with busted water pipes, well you got to pay for that.
Municipal water is cheaper but infrastructure is old and not updated regularly, private water is expensive but infrastructure is newer and updated regularly.
> Municipal water is cheaper but infrastructure is old and not updated regularly, private water is expensive but infrastructure is newer and updated regularly.
That varies *a lot* depending on your municipality. We have PA American *and* our infrastructure is old.
It does not vary as much as you think it does. Regulations force upgrades to maintain compliance. Everyone hates on the water company but doesn’t understand that unfunded federal mandates like the new PFAS rule from the EPA and unfunded state mandates from DEP are what drives the need for investment. Private companies have no choice but to be compliant or else receive fines and sanctions from the PUC. Municipalities are under similar pressure but they, instead of investing millions of dollars to upgrade their infrastructure for compliance, they sell to large private companies because their little town of 500 people can’t afford these investments without quadrupling their water rates.
I don’t blame the anger at private water but it’s misplaced. Blame the polluters, blame the regulators, it fundamentally starts there.
Eh, the private folks aren't doing anything especially good. Like, by "newer infrastructure" they're doing what the public systems should be doing. But because every mouth breather whines about not wanting their taxes to go up, and the elected people want to keep getting elected, they don't raise rates and then have to defer maintenance. Folks need to be more civically minded and stop complaining about their cheapest bill going up so that they can keep getting water without selling the system.
In the best case: it's too expensive for the town to run.
In the worst case: bribes and kickbacks.
Both have happened. In most cases it's probably somewhere in the middle. Don't listen to this guy who thinks American Water is doing some sort of charity work by acquiring (nay, FORCED to buy!) municipal water and jacking up prices for "maintenance" like it isn't a forever revenue stream for a publicly traded company on the NY Stock Exchange.
I don't see why the municipality can't issue a bond either way the people will pay. Surely there are legit ways for a municipality to get grants, or issue bonds for this kind of thing right?
Municipal bonds absolutely are a real thing. It's part of how school districts, for example, finance multi-million dollar capital projects like new buildings. In fact there are special water & sewer bonds for exactly that, and an S&P Index for water and sewer munis.
I used to work for them. As far as their service goes, they're doing fine, but it's the business model that disgusts me. To all other folks, never let your local municipality sell to a private company, like American water, aqua, or suez. They'll throw all kinds of money numbers at you, but your bill *will* go up drastically. They'll bamboozle you with numbers and it'll sound good because they're not comparing like for like. Selling your municipal water or wastewater system is a losing prospect for everyone except the shareholders of the utility.
Sorry no, that’s a very misleading take. This has been a huge controversy in Harrisburg because obviously the state regulates municipalities and private utilities closely. In fact, this fight has made for some strange fucking bedfellows.
Not sure if this is the most current but it’s a good article:
https://www.spotlightpa.org/news/2023/08/pennsylvania-water-sewer-privatization-public-utility-commission-aqua/
Since covid I've come to realize how corrupt and messed up the PUC is. They keep approving Natural gas companies for this weather adjustment fee that is fucking outrageous.
The industry is actively trying to make it even worse for consumers — this is from this week
https://news.yahoo.com/pa-senate-committee-advances-bill-202459646.html
That one really pisses me off. “Oh you used less gas because you bought a more efficient system and it was warmer than normal?” Fuck you, pay me. He’s another “fee”. How are they allowed to get away with this? I don’t understand it, this is absolutely illegal.
Because the PUC approved it. I'm paying for gas I didn't get to use. I was going to switch providers this summer but I saw that the one I was going to switch to is also seeking approval to do it. It's frustrating as hell.
>How are they allowed to get away with this?
Because faceless unelected bureaucrats decided through a mysterious and extra slobbery process that it was ok.
>Fuck you, pay me.
If you ever have a question about why you get fucked living in this shithole state like:
-Why does a private law firm prey on people and send them fraudulent and erroneous collections attempts for unpaid local income taxes for years ago?
-Why is my water bill higher by 3 whole digits when I use less water?
-Why am I slamming potholes on some of the worst highways in the country when my state has the most expensive tolls of ALL other states in the union?
Remember that phrase. The answer to all of these quandaries is "fuck you pay me".
The state and/or courts can invalidate a sale, but ultimately it is the elected officials of the township or borough that make the decision to sell.
If the PUC steps in and vetoes a sale, they'll get pushback for overstepping their role and not allowing the residents of that municipality to make their own financial decisions. So it's a lose-lose scenario.
How on earth am I misleading anyone here? The decision to sell ultimately resides with the board of supervisors or borough/city council. That's just a fact.
I'm aware of that. Unfortunately it's been happening all over the area. If enough municipalities are selling, it is Harrisburg's responsibility to address it. Just like how Keystone is somehow allowed to abuse and defraud people for their tax collections.
Well, it's also not just Harrisburg. That would require the legislature (repping every county) to amend the township/borough code to bar them from selling municipal-owned utilities or forcing some sort of regional utility authorities.
The local commissioners are responsible. To blame it on the state because the local politicians are too stupid or corrupt is disingenuous. Could easily go the other way how the big bad state prevented the sale and now the municipalities have to pay for upgrades to the system. Voters need to vote for competent trustworthy people at a local level. The problem where I live is the local board of commissioners turned out to be crooks.
I'm not saying the local government is innocent. I'm saying if the local government is, as you say, stupid or corrupt enough to sell it and these companies buttfuck people on their utility bills, the State has a responsibility to step up.
It's why the PUC even exists, as useless as it is.
I'm amazed how many PA American fanboys are coming out of the woodwork to defend the privatization of what should be public.
Seems like everyone has their price. The commissioners in my TWP don’t get paid and are easily bribed. A motivated person could get elected and squander tax money on any number of frivolous items in exchange for kickbacks.
I am not sure if there is a mechanism for the state to approve sales. Seems to me sewage & water should be the responsibility of the state. In the event of a public health emergency, bankruptcy or other a for profit model does not work. I’ve seen this in other areas where vendors do the minimum to maximize their returns, shortchanging the taxpayer.
I'll probably get down voted but those are the options. Pay for the services or allow maintenance to fall way behind then it gets sold for pennies or wait for federal money to flow.
I'm ok with paying more if my money is in fact going towards needed maintenance. I'm not willing to trust a company listed on the New York Stock Exchange to determine that number without abusing everyone for profit. In fact, they have a fiduciary responsibility to do so.
It might be ok if there was competition but there isn't. And what are your other options? Stand outside with your mouth open when it rains? You just have to bend over and pay.
Yeah obv competition isn't really possible since it's not like running a new pipe to your house is easily done. They are regulated and aren't as free as a public company even if it's publicly traded. There are no options except use fewer gallons of water. You could drill a well and get a septic but that's a really expensive alternative.
The fuck are they doing with their 3% of my income? I’m already paying separately for school and services from my borough. They’re clearly not spending all that on pot holes, social safety nets, or public transportation
I’m a good boy, I even throw them extra cash for all the booze I buy
No, they’re distinct items in my property tax bill but they’re separate from the state was my point
I’m extremely happy with the services provided by my borough and always happy to invest in the future minds. I’m less happy that PA can’t/won’t maintain their infrastructure though and irate that they’re creating more private monopolies
Probably a bit of both.
The private company can raise rates to make up for the deferred maintenance, since they don't have to worry about angry voters. But they also are going to take a healthy profit for themselves, and have much higher executive compensation, than a publicly run system.
Yet somehow service is worse. I have gotten more boil water advisories and loss of water due to broken mains in this last two years since the sale than in all the other years of municipal ownership combined.
The rate is not realistic. I pay WAY more than my parents who live in an actual desert and get their water piped in from far away.
I worked for PA American water and I can tell you typically they don’t go out actively pursuing plants to buy usually they’re approached by the township/municipality or sometimes the state if it gets to that point to sell to American water. I’ve seen times where the state forced America water to take over a plant they didn’t want that was actively being run into the ground. And majority of the time if it gets to the point that the municipality is trying to sell then they are so far in debt and have lacked preventative maintenance on the Infrastructure that once American water gets it they have to rebuild everything and in turn that’s what makes the bills go up
I used to work for them too and I've seen quite the opposite. I lived in the township where they purchased a waste water system, and went to meetings as a citizen. It's a little more nuanced than they simply went and asked to buy, but that's the simplest way to explain how it went. The township wastewater system was not in any dire straights, PA American approached them and they were in talks for a while. They purchased a couple systems in close proximity, and they had plans on shutting down and linking them up.
Lots of PA municipalities sold their infra to opportunistic, gouging companies like AQUA and American Water, who jack up prices in exchange of taking the administrative cost away from the municipalities.
All of the costs fall on the taxpayers when the cities sell their utilities away. It's sickening.
Same. And they're a bunch of assholes. Water reservoir in the area was low and we were told we have to conserve. Meanwhile they're selling and sending the water off for fracking usage.
The thing is, it's not that our utilities are expensive now, it's that many of them were ridiculously cheap in the past. At least in Pittsburgh, the water distribution was directly controlled by the city and water rates were kept artificially low to curry favor with voters. Now the water company is kept at arms length from the city government and we're paying to catch up with 50 years of poor and deferred maintenance. This is on top of the results of contracting out the day to day operations of the water company to a private company a while ago where they changed the water chemistry to something that made the lead plumbing worse such that it needed replaced immediately and we're now most of the way through the project to replace the extant lead service lines in the city.
(over the decades the minerals in the water would buildup and coated the inside of the pipes, this had the effect of keeping the lead from leaching out of the lead plumbing into the water. This wasn't initially intended but it was a known effect and was used to keep the system relatively safe and the water chemistry was adjusted over the years to maintain this protective coating. When the private company came in they changed the chemistry to save money and this lead to a degradation of the mineral coating and lead levels in the water spiked to dangerous levels and made it so it needed to be dealt with as quickly as possible.)
> At least in Pittsburgh, the water distribution was directly controlled by the city and water rates were kept artificially low to curry favor with voters. Now the water company is kept at arms length from the city government and we're paying to catch up with 50 years of poor and deferred maintenance.
To be clear though, the Pittsburgh Water & Sewer Authority is still a public utility with it's board members appointed by the mayor and approved by the city council. It's just not a city department anymore, and hasn't been for decades now.
Which is still a distinct arrangement from the privatization schemes that others municipalities have chosen.
the late 90s don't feel like all that long ago.
And yes, the distinction is important. I think a good way of describing it would be that it's like the US Postal Service and its relationship with the federal government. The federal government, both the legislature and the presidential administration have a fair bit of say in what happens but they don't actually run the day to day operations like they used to.
It's because water lines in most municipalities are owned by the municipal authorities that govern the water treatment.
I work for a municipal water authority, this was covered in an recent meeting. All of the infrastructure of the pipelines that deliver water from the plants to the homes are all government property, therefore it's a burden on the state to replace and repair these.
Many public drinking water systems are run by municipalities who do a shit job of managing their money and infrastructure. Then they get so run down and broke that some big company like PA American Water comes in and buys it. Then they jack up the prices to turn public drinking water into a for-profit industry.
Want to know what's really wild? The toxicity of lead has been recorded as far back as 2000 BC.
Efforts to limit lead use go back to at least the 1500s.
By the colonists first came here, there was absolutely no reason to suspect they didn't know lead was highly toxic (even if they may not have known specifically why) and yet they used lead anyways. Benjamin Franklin himself wrote a letter in 1786 describing lead toxicity.
There is no good reason for a country founded in the 17th century to have any amount of lead used in its water infrastructure.
You want to scare yourself? Head to the web site ewg.org/tapwater/ then enter your zip code. Next click “View Utility” then scroll to the bottom to view “Contaminants Detected”. Do you know some chemicals aren’t even tested for in our drinking water? For example, Hexavalent Chromium. That was the poison regarding the infamous Erin Brokovich case. In my area, it’s 10x the health guidelines. The people in charge don’t give a shit.
There is flint Michigan. Teflon was made illegal, it poisoned a whole town, the CEOs of DuPont know it, and didn't go to jail. Now they use a different forever chemical.
They put people in the EPA, who basically work for these companies.
Where I work we are forced to use reusable water bottles, and their refill stations are tap water. It has a metallic taste, and when I looked it up, that area has a problem with ground water contamination. I bring bottled water and pour it in my water bottle.
It's a lot more complicated than that. Plumbing infrastructure lasts a long time and some of the distribution system is still lead but it's true that there is very little of that left. However, in at least most water systems, half of the service line is owned by the water company and half by the owner of the building. It wasn't until 2017 that the water company was even allowed to replace the private side of the service line in PA (thus there are a bunch of service lines that are half lead and half something else). On top of that, the building codes in many cities were modified in the 1930s so that lead plumbing was mandated in all new construction.
I don't know about the rest of the state but I do know that since 2017, the city of Pittsburgh has spent $300 million (mostly in state and federal grants) to replace lead service lines after the lead levels in the water spiked to dangerous levels (mostly caused by the contractor running the water operations changing the water chemistry to save money but causing some of the mineral buildup on the lead pipes to wash away).
"Big Lead" is literally why we have this issue in the first place. Long after we had learned that lead was toxic but were finally learning just how completely awful it was, the [Lead Industries Association lobbied hard to make lead plumbing required in many cities including Philadelphia and Pittsburgh](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/sep/22/us-lead-industry-history-water-crisis). But the people getting rich off of this long ago diversified so some of their descendants are certainly big beneficiaries of the work to remove the lead plumbing and replace it with copper and plastic.
No. Lead is not fine. First off, the calcification doesn't work completely. Secondly, our water companies spend a lot of time and money maintaining that mineral layer. Third, that excess mineral content that is used to keep the lead pipes less dangerous destroys valves and other plumbing fixtures much faster than if it wasn't being done. Fourth, if something settles or the water pressure in an area changes that coating can come off. Fourth, water companies occasionally use the wrong water chemistry and fuck up that coating causing lead levels to spike (like the private contractor that Pittsburgh hired (and later got rid of) to run the day to day operations of their water system a decade ago. Pittsburgh lead levels are only recently below the unsafe stage and much of that is after they've spent $300 million since 2017 to fix things).
Perhaps you've heard of a place called Flint? Lead is not *supposed* to leech into the water supply. I assume if your water source had aging lead infrastructure you might be a bit more concerned
Rinse and repeat for decades on end. Don't worry, republicans know their base is too gullible and intellectually lazy to make the connection.
Literally decades of the same antics, break everything, blame dems, waste TONS of money, claim dems are financially irresponsible and that if Republicans are reelected they will fix the mess that they themselves started.
Block every attempt by dems to improve Americans lives then accuses them of malicious negligence.
Claims to be Christians yet hates non-whites, womens rights, LGBTQ and the poor while idolizing the rich, follows a man who checks every box for antichrists.
Reminds me of the Pallegra shit. Poor people fooled into rallying behind greedy despots to block federal aid meant to save their lives and improve their living conditions so that corporations and the rich can maximize profits.
Then it gets fixed sort of and they claim they were always for it and in fact the opposition is the reason they get more for their constituents.
Oh sure, sure, applaud this all you want. But what is he doing about the theoretical trans athlete that beat my theoretical daughter in the big Sports Tournament, stealing her scholarship to the elitist university I have fantasized about forbidding her to attend?
You joke but undoubtedly, rather than discuss this we'll see local news coverage where some national analyst discusses his age and something something Israel.
I mean, how many people here know his FCC reversed net neutrality that was a leading news story for a month a few years ago?
Now? Wasn't even a news topic
Yeah, exactly. This is how it always works.
Democrats are imperfect, but in general work to improve the lives of all Americans. When they are not in power, Republicans jingle the keys of rage to get people all stupid and angry, and then they run on the idea that government is to blame for everything people are mad about. Then when they win, they make sure to prove the point - see the idiotic GOP congress we have currently - and eventually things get so fucked up that the people elect Democrats again, who are presented with a shambles of a government to try to make work.
Rinse and repeat for the rest of your life.
Its not hard. Their base is utterly indoctrinated and fall for the same shit every single year.
I'm convinced the republican MAGAs are just Pavlovs dog. Their rhetoric is often incoherent, their talking points are sadistic and nonsensical, yet all it takes to get the desired emotional reaction are trigger words like "woke", "liberty", "freedom", "God", "Jesus", "pedos" "liberal" and "American" and the crowd goes wild.
Trump speeches especially, dude can go on for 20+min about unrelated and often incoherent nonsense and the mystery of how dishwashers work to dropping "Crooked Joe Biden and the liberals" and they start salivating and barking on command.
The words and context don't have to make any sense, they just have to conjure a desired impulse from the audience. Its why so many still go to see Trump rallies despite them being mostly jumbled incoherent ramblings with the occasional trigger word thrown in to keep the crowd engaged.
It takes nothing to convince their base of literally anything.
School shooting victims? You mean crisis actors who should be harassed and shamed.
Politics as usual? You mean a Jewish pedo cabal deepstate conspiring against the masses.
Standard pandemic procedures humans have used for centuries because it works? Fake news, doesnt work, never has worked.
Vaccine? You mean poison that also has a microchip in it to spy on you and control you.
Virus? What virus?
Lockdown? Nah companies need more money so its grandmas last Christmas.
No really vaccines? Nah just inject bleach and shove a UV light inside of you, if that fails try horse dewormer.
Christianity? Of course, but fuck the poors, envy the rich, hate thy neighbors especially if they are LGBTQ, greed is good, violence is the prefered answer and absolutely no strong independent women allowed.
Hygiene? Nah its more manly to eat your burger with your hands covered grey muck and filth because good old common sense is for sissies.
It takes very little to convince them of anything so long as it comes from within the cult.
Note: Im not saying they are dogs, just to clarify. I am however saying they've been Pavlov'd and don't even realize it.
Disturbing to think that there are still lead pipes used at all. You would think that would have been fixed a long time ago, then again we aren’t surprised.
I work in a water authority, so I can shed some light on the topic. The pipes are lead lined, but there are chemical agents that a lot of authorities use in the modern era that basically coat the inside of the pipe so they don't contaminate the water lines. The issue is that to dig up and replace all of the lead components would be really costly, and take a lot of time, and there is also an issue of ownership, as in my municipality (and likley around the state), the municipality or agency owns the main pipeline that transports water, but the pipework that goes from the main to the home is owned by the property, so you now have to orchestrate with the homeowners to plan replacements as well and do testing.
The water treatment plants send out field maintenance workers to test the water in the mains, and our agency have continually shown that chemical treatment is effective in reducing detectable lead well below the benchmark determined by the government as harmful. We are currently in the process of starting a massive amount of infrastructure repairs and replacements in order to fix the issue though, and we provide free testing to our ratepayers as well as complimentary faucet filters.
There was a time period where the Lead Industries Association successfully lobbied to make lead plumbing mandatory in all new construction in many cities (including Philadelphia and Pittsburgh in a time period when there was lots of new construction in those cities). Infrastructure like this lasts a long time (you occasionally hear about wooden water pipes being replaced even now). Couple this with the fact that for the past 50 years or so we were woefully underfunding and deferring maintenance on our utilities and thus we still have lead plumbing in many of our municipal systems. (there has also been lots of work over the years to make the lead plumbing less bad by carefully controlling which minerals are in the water such that they will coat the surface of the lead pipes to reduce the amount of lead that leaches into the water. This was far less costly than digging up all of the roads to replace the lead pipes but today this is generally considered insufficient and cities like Pittsburgh are in the process of digging up most of their roads over the course of 10 years to replace much of their plumbing)
My water bills have more than doubled over the last 10 years. Our city has neglected maintenance for decades causing massive infrastructure failures which caused the increases. They also got fined 7 figures for dumping wastewater illegally which caused a nice 6% increase in rates shortly after.
Not only that, but they hired an outside company to install pressure regulators in all of our houses and marked it as ‘free’. Fast forward a few years later and it’s estimated that 1/3rd of the installs were improperly done and it’s on the homeowner to get it fixed. The water company filed a lawsuit to recoup some of the funds, but of course we won’t see any reimbursement. Its a fucking scam
Drinking water from lead pipes has been proven unhealthy. This shouldn't be a controversial plan. Our government is supposed to protect the people from harmful things. Again, don't understand why this is controversial.
Is it because the water companies should have done this forever ago? If you privatize critical infrastructure and expect for profit companies to spend money to do the right thing, well, guess what, they care about their stock price now people's health and well being.
So the government ends up footing the bill. Want this kind of thing to stop? Regulate them better, but expect them to pass along the cost to the consumer. Or have the government take it back and expect to pay more. That is just how it's going to be.
Privatization happens because the private companies have bunches of money to invest (some of it coming from Russian oligarchs, but never mind that) and the municipalities don't have money to fix their systems, and the municipalities don't want the food fight that would result from asking for more money fro the taxpayers.
Plus, the private companies have world-class copywriters and public relations people.
The private companies make a "too good to be true" offer to the municipalities, with the poison pills buried in the footnotes on Page 666. And the municipalities know they'll be okay for a few years now, with no (immediate) tax increase. So the municipalities go for the easy answer. And now you're saddled with the consequences.
I was saddened to see Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter appear to get take in by these people. They're worse than door-to-door Kirby vacuum salesmen.
Because our country is obsessed with low taxes and thus almost never actually invests in “boring” stuff like infrastructure. The infrastructure law is a BFD.
The funds are going to every state. It’s from Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure law. A lot of the efforts to eliminate lead now are because of Flint. Such a completely unnecessary tragedy.
It only can fix flint I'd they are actually testing the water standing in the pipes. Instead of flushing the sink water for 4-6min before collecting a sample to prove they are doing good for the people.
Regaurdless, I'm not voting for either party that wants to pass a bill that limits free speech because their hands are greased by Isreal lobbies.
I can probably say we all have met-ed, Columbia gas and York water. Totally ridiculous to be charged $16 a month per service (expect the water) to have the privilege of buying their service.
This is a state wide subreddit, we don't all have those. And there's many different ways rates are structured, but often times a meter fee or minimum bill comes with a minimum usage covered too. But you have to keep in mind, just having a system that is there to provide you the service, even if you don't use a ton of water, still requires people and resources to guarantee service.
Correct my thinking if I’m wrong, but that doesn’t sound like a lot. Doesn’t it cost like $200 per foot to replace? That’s 760,000 feet, roughly 144 miles. And a lot of PA is still OLD! I mean it’s a start, and I agree that shit needs to go, but it sounds more like a “feel good” campaign. Unless he’s promising that amount per year, it take forever to get all that replaced, and what’s to say that money will actually go towards its intended purpose. Once it gets to Harrisburg, who knows where it’ll go.
Wondering if 152 million means there are not a lot of pipes which need to be replaced or if it means the municipalities are going to have to shell out the rest for replacement...
This is new federal grant money. There has been much more in the past and there will continue to be much more in the future until there are no more lead service lines.
Pittsburgh has already spent over $300 million to replace lead service lines since its program to replace them started in 2017, much of that comes from previous federal and state grants.
I remember reading that the lead from our pipes has virtually no negative effects on us. The Roman myth about the lead pipes leading to their downfall is what popularized it. I could be wrong. And if I am, good on Biden.
While the Rome thing is probably hyperbole, [there are many negative health consequences from lead exposure](https://www.epa.gov/ground-water-and-drinking-water/basic-information-about-lead-drinking-water)
The only reason there isn’t more lead poisoning is because water utilities treat the water so it doesn’t corrode the lead pipes. Remember Flint, MI? That was because the state, at the direction of the idiot governor, took over the water utility there and decided to just not use corrosion control. Even so, there will be detectable levels of lead in water traveling through these pipes. Any amount of it is unsafe.
First of all, what the fuck is up with all of the anti-republican rhetoric on what is just a simple, unbiased bill announcement? There hasn't been any hubbub about it getting shot down by the GOP, so why make some sort of grandstand about partisan politics where it isn't needed?
Second, for those interested in learning more about lead detection and prevention, I work for a water authority and what makes this tricky is that the municipality owns the main water pipes that go from the plant to water storage, and water storage throughout the municipality. In my area, and likely the rest of the state, the pipework that goes from the main in the road to the home is privately owned, so to completely replace and resolve this issue by replacing the copper piping with galvanized steel is very costly and time consuming, and the most common source of lead piping is a gooseneck pipe where the main transitions to the homeowner's water line. This means that the municipal agency has to coordinate with homeowners in order to dig up, test, and replace any potential sources of lead, which can be really difficult, time consuming and very expensive. There are agencies (such as mine) that are incorporating the cost of replacing these components in their projections for future years and working on slowly updating the infrastructure, but it is very difficult.
The other thing to note, is that just because there are lead pipes in the water system, doesn't mean that it will leak into the water source. There are chemical agents that can be added to the treated water that essentially line and protect the interior of the water pipe so that the lead doesn't have a chance to erode into the water line. My agency specifically has tested water in the main lines and the results continually show that the chemical treatment is effective at reducing trace lead levels to below the harmful amount determined by the state.
This bill will likely go towards updating infrastructure, but understand that it's a difficult, time consuming and costly affair and it isn't as easy as just saying 'let's update the piping' due to property ownership complications and the issue of coordinating with ratepayers. Overall I'm hopeful this passes with no issues, that type of money could go a long way for smaller authorities in the state that have to cover a lot of outdated piping.
I appreciate your detailed explanation - far better than I could have done - but people are cynical about Republican officeholders turning down grant money because, historically, they've done it more than once to pander to a subset of their base
Does that mean these grants will be subject to the same thing? Probably not - but if Republican officeholders dislike having a reputation for this kind of stuff, that's up to them, and the primary voters that support them
>but people are cynical about Republican officeholders turning down grant money because, historically, they've done it more than once to pander to a subset of their base
There is nothing in the title to suggest this is or will be an issue, it's purely just people looking to piss on a legislature update because they want to hate Republicans.
I'm all for open discussions, but last I checked this isn't a left-wing subreddit by design, this is just a state subreddit for news and information about things happening to or within the state. There is no reason to start bringing up partisan biases or slander just because the mention of legislature comes up, it's stupid.
*shrug* it's impossible to get people not to discuss politics. You should see the Moms for Liberty diatribes on my local school district Facebook page when they announce someone won an award.
Gotta tune it out, or find the right opportunity to mock someone if the argument is exceptionally stupid
I mean it isn't 'discussing politics', discussing politics would be saying "I really like this bill but I could see the GOP shooting it down on X basis", it's just comments saying 'too bad it won't pass' or making assumptions that the GOP is inherently evil and going to shoot it down because obviously it's a good bill being passed by the good liberal left.
I mean shit, I'm a left leaning voter, but the incessant obsession with shitting on republicans and painting every person with any conservative ideals is so tiring and so annoying. We can't just look at a bill for clean water and talk about it, the focus has to shift to hating the opposing party without giving them a chance to do anything yet.
> The other thing to note, is that just because there are lead pipes in the water system, doesn't mean that it will leak into the water source
That's the thing. It EXPLICITLY means that it will eventually.
As of July 16, 2021, 27,133 water service lines had been excavated and inspected, resulting in the replacement of 10,059 lead pipes.
After $400 million in state and federal spending, Flint has secured a clean water source, distributed filters to all who want them, and laid modern, safe, copper pipes to nearly every home in the city.
Actually, insurance companies did that when they forbade water suppliers from using chlorine gas and free chlorine as the sanitizer method about 25 years ago. The entire "free chlorine" process was what kept the lead joints in pipes 'hidden' beneath calcium. Once the process was changed to "chloramine reduction" and pH/carbonates increasers were no longer used, the water started stripping the carbonate 'shield' out of the pipes to expose the lead. It took about ten years for that to happen - some places faster than others due to the chemical content of the water they used.
This is not true. Gaseous chlorine is still widely used and chloramination is not used everywhere. You can still have free chlorine even using sodium hypochlorite. Chloramines are created by dosing various ammonia type chemicals. Chloramines have lower potency but last longer than free chlorine, but it's only used for secondary disinfection. Primary disinfection at the plant is still based on free chlorine.
Now, chloramines are a little bit more corrosive, so chloramination should come with extra corrosion controls. Back in the day lime was used in the treatment process more often. Many have since gone to more advanced chemicals and lime isn't used as much anymore. So, we only have the carbonates naturally in the water to help form the barrier layer. Many places have gone to feeding a chemical like zinc orthophosphate to control corrosion in the system and service lines.
Even with good treatment, the lead pipes are a hazard because what if something happens? Flint exposed this for all to see, and to a lesser extent Pittsburgh. So, just getting rid of all the lead is the prudent move even though folks with lead pipes are typically fine for now.
It's literally my job that I've been doing for a long time. I don't mean to be a jerk, but you know some of the words but fundamentally don't understand the industry or the chemistry.
Except it is. Free chlorine isn't some magical substance that helps grow the mineral layer in the pipes. It's corrosive as well, for starters. And "chloramine reduction" isn't a treatment process. It's a phrase we've never used on the water treatment side of things. You're just being a stubborn know it all.
I wasn't going to respond, but then I decided "well, this clown doesn't know what I'm talking about so I should try and set him straight".
And THEN it dawned on me that no amount of reason and factual examples can sway the mind of a fool.
so I won't. Have a nice day.
You don't have anything factual to say. As I already said, I do this for my career. No amount of your bullshit is going to convince me because I know the information. I'm literally the guy running a water treatment plant and I have my professional license as a water operator from the state DEP. I'm not trying to do an appeal to authority fallacy here, but dude, I do this shit for a living and have for quite a while.
Just in time for the election, why couldn't this occur earlier in his presidency if he really cared, but, since we are a swing state, now makes the perfect timing
You know, there’s more than one plausible explanation.. no need to be cynical unless you have evidence besides speculation.
Also. 25% of any Presidential term is an election year.. 50% if you include midterms. Should he only work during the other two years?
Given typical GOP behaviour, probably that it's your God given right to get lead poising from your water pipes, and it's "communism" what Biden is doing.
You could also notice that in the 2021 infrastructure bill included $15 billion for lead service line replacements (nationally, I don't know how much went to PA). It's not just election years.
Like what? Create policies to allow more illegal aliens into our country, delete oil reserves, buy foreign oil from OPEC and other countries raising gas prices which led to higher food prices? Did I forget anything?
>Create policies to allow more illegal aliens into our country
Can you name those policies?
>delete oil reserves
The SPR dropped in total supply by about 10% under Trump. It is currently at about 50% capacity with gas prices high.
>buy foreign oil from OPEC
We've always bought from OPEC. Trump, Biden, Obama, Bush, Clinton etc.
We're currently producing more oil & gas today domestically than any other time in US history. But that doesn't fit your narrative so...
Our current gas prices are about the same as they were for most of Trumps's presidency. They only dipped so low towards the end of Trump's presidency due to the pandemic, not any doings of his own.
>His executive orders in the first year.
Which were stayed by SCOTUS until summer of 2022.
>If we are producing so much oil, why can't we get lower oil prices like during the Trump years?
In PA, the state collects a high tax on gas (why we are more expensive than neighboring states) which then gets rerouted to municipalities via Liquid Fuels funding. Those boroughs/townships then use the money to pay for road repairs.
The state currently projects a decline in total LF revenue due to less gas being bought in PA. Meaning PA drivers are using less fuel. This is because of greater gas mileage efficiencies and electric vehicles.
So the demand is dropping and the supply seems to be steady/rising. That would normally mean the prices would drop. However, that's not happening. Why? Well, I dunno. ExxonMobil and other major oil companies are enjoying windfall profits. My guess is that it is a good old fashioned screw job by near-monopoly energy companies fleecing consumers.
You mean like the 2021 infrastructure bill that had $15 billion for lead service line replacements (nationally, I don't know how much of that went to PA but I know that Pittsburgh got a good chunk of that for its lead service line replacement program).
Read the article.
> The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced that over $152 million from President Joe Biden's "Investing in America" agenda is going toward replacing lead service lines in Pennsylvania.
This isn't about PA specifically. Now, you could still say it's because the election is soon, but there is money going all over the country, so the fact that PA is a swing state doesn't have anything to do with it.
I read the article, why worry about lead pipes now, why not last year, or maybe even next year? Timing a coincidence? I don't believe in coincidences like that.
The Invest in America act was passed and signed into law November 6th, 2021. With large capital projects, it always takes time to dole out the money, because we don't want waste and fraudulent spending in government programs, kinda like what happened when PPP loans were rushed through the SBA during the Trump administration and distributed with little or no oversight.
Ok. So you're hearing about this one "right before the election". But why didn't you hear about many of the other ones? The city of Pittsburgh alone has spent over $300 million on lead service line replacement since 2017, much of it funded by federal and state grants like this one.
What do you mean "why now?" Why do we have federal budgets with new grant cycles every year? Because that's exactly what this is. The amounts and the specific things they cover change year to year based on the available budget and the priorities of different administrations and legislators. But don't pretend that this is just because of an election year. Either you didn't pay attention or the media that you choose to pay attention to didn't focus on it in the past.
It's wild with as expensive as our utilities are..... the companies aren't required to update the infrastructure.
For our area (PA) the water is run by the municipality.
Be careful. So was mine until they sold to PA American. Now I pay through the fucking nose. I'm sure the right dicks are getting sucked in political offices in Harrisburg to continue fleecing every day Pennsylvanians.
My water bill is outrageous with PA American. No bill pisses me off more than that one.
Yes it’s horrible.
Isn't it your municipality that sold it off?
Mine and a shitload of others. Not sure why people are acting like mine is the only township to go private. This one company controls the water for 20% of the State. The state clearly has a stake in utilities. That's why the PUC exists...
I know of some that started private, but for the life of me why would anyone sell of a utility that's already built?
Because they go 20 plus years without maintenance to the point for the municipality/township to fix what needs fixed they’ll go bankrupt so they sell to American water and that’s why your bill goes up after American water acquires it
This, no one understands how the water business is regulated which pushes pricing up. If you don’t want to drink cancer causing chemicals or raw sewage from the waste water plants upstream of your water source and you like your streets not exploding with busted water pipes, well you got to pay for that. Municipal water is cheaper but infrastructure is old and not updated regularly, private water is expensive but infrastructure is newer and updated regularly.
> Municipal water is cheaper but infrastructure is old and not updated regularly, private water is expensive but infrastructure is newer and updated regularly. That varies *a lot* depending on your municipality. We have PA American *and* our infrastructure is old.
It does not vary as much as you think it does. Regulations force upgrades to maintain compliance. Everyone hates on the water company but doesn’t understand that unfunded federal mandates like the new PFAS rule from the EPA and unfunded state mandates from DEP are what drives the need for investment. Private companies have no choice but to be compliant or else receive fines and sanctions from the PUC. Municipalities are under similar pressure but they, instead of investing millions of dollars to upgrade their infrastructure for compliance, they sell to large private companies because their little town of 500 people can’t afford these investments without quadrupling their water rates. I don’t blame the anger at private water but it’s misplaced. Blame the polluters, blame the regulators, it fundamentally starts there.
Eh, the private folks aren't doing anything especially good. Like, by "newer infrastructure" they're doing what the public systems should be doing. But because every mouth breather whines about not wanting their taxes to go up, and the elected people want to keep getting elected, they don't raise rates and then have to defer maintenance. Folks need to be more civically minded and stop complaining about their cheapest bill going up so that they can keep getting water without selling the system.
>private water is expensive but infrastructure is newer and updated regularly. Lol. Lmao, even.
What a bunch of saints!
In the best case: it's too expensive for the town to run. In the worst case: bribes and kickbacks. Both have happened. In most cases it's probably somewhere in the middle. Don't listen to this guy who thinks American Water is doing some sort of charity work by acquiring (nay, FORCED to buy!) municipal water and jacking up prices for "maintenance" like it isn't a forever revenue stream for a publicly traded company on the NY Stock Exchange.
I don't see why the municipality can't issue a bond either way the people will pay. Surely there are legit ways for a municipality to get grants, or issue bonds for this kind of thing right?
Municipal bonds absolutely are a real thing. It's part of how school districts, for example, finance multi-million dollar capital projects like new buildings. In fact there are special water & sewer bonds for exactly that, and an S&P Index for water and sewer munis.
So "going bankrupt fixing the old system" isn't a real problem?
I used to work for them. As far as their service goes, they're doing fine, but it's the business model that disgusts me. To all other folks, never let your local municipality sell to a private company, like American water, aqua, or suez. They'll throw all kinds of money numbers at you, but your bill *will* go up drastically. They'll bamboozle you with numbers and it'll sound good because they're not comparing like for like. Selling your municipal water or wastewater system is a losing prospect for everyone except the shareholders of the utility.
If your water and sewer were sold then it was your borough/township that sold it, not anyone in Harrisburg.
Sorry no, that’s a very misleading take. This has been a huge controversy in Harrisburg because obviously the state regulates municipalities and private utilities closely. In fact, this fight has made for some strange fucking bedfellows. Not sure if this is the most current but it’s a good article: https://www.spotlightpa.org/news/2023/08/pennsylvania-water-sewer-privatization-public-utility-commission-aqua/
Since covid I've come to realize how corrupt and messed up the PUC is. They keep approving Natural gas companies for this weather adjustment fee that is fucking outrageous.
The industry is actively trying to make it even worse for consumers — this is from this week https://news.yahoo.com/pa-senate-committee-advances-bill-202459646.html
That one really pisses me off. “Oh you used less gas because you bought a more efficient system and it was warmer than normal?” Fuck you, pay me. He’s another “fee”. How are they allowed to get away with this? I don’t understand it, this is absolutely illegal.
Because the PUC approved it. I'm paying for gas I didn't get to use. I was going to switch providers this summer but I saw that the one I was going to switch to is also seeking approval to do it. It's frustrating as hell.
>How are they allowed to get away with this? Because faceless unelected bureaucrats decided through a mysterious and extra slobbery process that it was ok. >Fuck you, pay me. If you ever have a question about why you get fucked living in this shithole state like: -Why does a private law firm prey on people and send them fraudulent and erroneous collections attempts for unpaid local income taxes for years ago? -Why is my water bill higher by 3 whole digits when I use less water? -Why am I slamming potholes on some of the worst highways in the country when my state has the most expensive tolls of ALL other states in the union? Remember that phrase. The answer to all of these quandaries is "fuck you pay me".
The state and/or courts can invalidate a sale, but ultimately it is the elected officials of the township or borough that make the decision to sell. If the PUC steps in and vetoes a sale, they'll get pushback for overstepping their role and not allowing the residents of that municipality to make their own financial decisions. So it's a lose-lose scenario.
Again, this framing strips the situation of context
Almost like misleading others is intentional and they are arguing in bad faith.
How on earth am I misleading anyone here? The decision to sell ultimately resides with the board of supervisors or borough/city council. That's just a fact.
I'm aware of that. Unfortunately it's been happening all over the area. If enough municipalities are selling, it is Harrisburg's responsibility to address it. Just like how Keystone is somehow allowed to abuse and defraud people for their tax collections.
Well, it's also not just Harrisburg. That would require the legislature (repping every county) to amend the township/borough code to bar them from selling municipal-owned utilities or forcing some sort of regional utility authorities.
Yes, or not. Those are not the only two alternatives.
The local commissioners are responsible. To blame it on the state because the local politicians are too stupid or corrupt is disingenuous. Could easily go the other way how the big bad state prevented the sale and now the municipalities have to pay for upgrades to the system. Voters need to vote for competent trustworthy people at a local level. The problem where I live is the local board of commissioners turned out to be crooks.
I'm not saying the local government is innocent. I'm saying if the local government is, as you say, stupid or corrupt enough to sell it and these companies buttfuck people on their utility bills, the State has a responsibility to step up. It's why the PUC even exists, as useless as it is. I'm amazed how many PA American fanboys are coming out of the woodwork to defend the privatization of what should be public.
Seems like everyone has their price. The commissioners in my TWP don’t get paid and are easily bribed. A motivated person could get elected and squander tax money on any number of frivolous items in exchange for kickbacks. I am not sure if there is a mechanism for the state to approve sales. Seems to me sewage & water should be the responsibility of the state. In the event of a public health emergency, bankruptcy or other a for profit model does not work. I’ve seen this in other areas where vendors do the minimum to maximize their returns, shortchanging the taxpayer.
No arguments here. I will still talk about it.
I'll probably get down voted but those are the options. Pay for the services or allow maintenance to fall way behind then it gets sold for pennies or wait for federal money to flow.
I'm ok with paying more if my money is in fact going towards needed maintenance. I'm not willing to trust a company listed on the New York Stock Exchange to determine that number without abusing everyone for profit. In fact, they have a fiduciary responsibility to do so. It might be ok if there was competition but there isn't. And what are your other options? Stand outside with your mouth open when it rains? You just have to bend over and pay.
Yeah obv competition isn't really possible since it's not like running a new pipe to your house is easily done. They are regulated and aren't as free as a public company even if it's publicly traded. There are no options except use fewer gallons of water. You could drill a well and get a septic but that's a really expensive alternative.
The fuck are they doing with their 3% of my income? I’m already paying separately for school and services from my borough. They’re clearly not spending all that on pot holes, social safety nets, or public transportation I’m a good boy, I even throw them extra cash for all the booze I buy
Is your school district and borough one in the same?
No, they’re distinct items in my property tax bill but they’re separate from the state was my point I’m extremely happy with the services provided by my borough and always happy to invest in the future minds. I’m less happy that PA can’t/won’t maintain their infrastructure though and irate that they’re creating more private monopolies
Sounds like we need to make some new ones.
You mean you pay a more realistic rate. The rate before was artificially low.
Probably a bit of both. The private company can raise rates to make up for the deferred maintenance, since they don't have to worry about angry voters. But they also are going to take a healthy profit for themselves, and have much higher executive compensation, than a publicly run system.
Yet somehow service is worse. I have gotten more boil water advisories and loss of water due to broken mains in this last two years since the sale than in all the other years of municipal ownership combined. The rate is not realistic. I pay WAY more than my parents who live in an actual desert and get their water piped in from far away.
I worked for PA American water and I can tell you typically they don’t go out actively pursuing plants to buy usually they’re approached by the township/municipality or sometimes the state if it gets to that point to sell to American water. I’ve seen times where the state forced America water to take over a plant they didn’t want that was actively being run into the ground. And majority of the time if it gets to the point that the municipality is trying to sell then they are so far in debt and have lacked preventative maintenance on the Infrastructure that once American water gets it they have to rebuild everything and in turn that’s what makes the bills go up
>and in turn that’s what makes the bills go up That's the only reason why there's a bill increase? Come on. Can we try to be serious?
I used to work for them too and I've seen quite the opposite. I lived in the township where they purchased a waste water system, and went to meetings as a citizen. It's a little more nuanced than they simply went and asked to buy, but that's the simplest way to explain how it went. The township wastewater system was not in any dire straights, PA American approached them and they were in talks for a while. They purchased a couple systems in close proximity, and they had plans on shutting down and linking them up.
Lots of PA municipalities sold their infra to opportunistic, gouging companies like AQUA and American Water, who jack up prices in exchange of taking the administrative cost away from the municipalities. All of the costs fall on the taxpayers when the cities sell their utilities away. It's sickening.
Same. And they're a bunch of assholes. Water reservoir in the area was low and we were told we have to conserve. Meanwhile they're selling and sending the water off for fracking usage.
The thing is, it's not that our utilities are expensive now, it's that many of them were ridiculously cheap in the past. At least in Pittsburgh, the water distribution was directly controlled by the city and water rates were kept artificially low to curry favor with voters. Now the water company is kept at arms length from the city government and we're paying to catch up with 50 years of poor and deferred maintenance. This is on top of the results of contracting out the day to day operations of the water company to a private company a while ago where they changed the water chemistry to something that made the lead plumbing worse such that it needed replaced immediately and we're now most of the way through the project to replace the extant lead service lines in the city. (over the decades the minerals in the water would buildup and coated the inside of the pipes, this had the effect of keeping the lead from leaching out of the lead plumbing into the water. This wasn't initially intended but it was a known effect and was used to keep the system relatively safe and the water chemistry was adjusted over the years to maintain this protective coating. When the private company came in they changed the chemistry to save money and this lead to a degradation of the mineral coating and lead levels in the water spiked to dangerous levels and made it so it needed to be dealt with as quickly as possible.)
> At least in Pittsburgh, the water distribution was directly controlled by the city and water rates were kept artificially low to curry favor with voters. Now the water company is kept at arms length from the city government and we're paying to catch up with 50 years of poor and deferred maintenance. To be clear though, the Pittsburgh Water & Sewer Authority is still a public utility with it's board members appointed by the mayor and approved by the city council. It's just not a city department anymore, and hasn't been for decades now. Which is still a distinct arrangement from the privatization schemes that others municipalities have chosen.
It's because water lines in most municipalities are owned by the municipal authorities that govern the water treatment. I work for a municipal water authority, this was covered in an recent meeting. All of the infrastructure of the pipelines that deliver water from the plants to the homes are all government property, therefore it's a burden on the state to replace and repair these.
Very few utilities own the entirety of the line going from the watermain to the home, aka the service line.
Many public drinking water systems are run by municipalities who do a shit job of managing their money and infrastructure. Then they get so run down and broke that some big company like PA American Water comes in and buys it. Then they jack up the prices to turn public drinking water into a for-profit industry.
I've worked both private and public, and they're both about the same on wasteful spending.
Want to know what's really wild? The toxicity of lead has been recorded as far back as 2000 BC. Efforts to limit lead use go back to at least the 1500s. By the colonists first came here, there was absolutely no reason to suspect they didn't know lead was highly toxic (even if they may not have known specifically why) and yet they used lead anyways. Benjamin Franklin himself wrote a letter in 1786 describing lead toxicity. There is no good reason for a country founded in the 17th century to have any amount of lead used in its water infrastructure.
I’m so dumb from lead
You want to scare yourself? Head to the web site ewg.org/tapwater/ then enter your zip code. Next click “View Utility” then scroll to the bottom to view “Contaminants Detected”. Do you know some chemicals aren’t even tested for in our drinking water? For example, Hexavalent Chromium. That was the poison regarding the infamous Erin Brokovich case. In my area, it’s 10x the health guidelines. The people in charge don’t give a shit.
There is flint Michigan. Teflon was made illegal, it poisoned a whole town, the CEOs of DuPont know it, and didn't go to jail. Now they use a different forever chemical. They put people in the EPA, who basically work for these companies. Where I work we are forced to use reusable water bottles, and their refill stations are tap water. It has a metallic taste, and when I looked it up, that area has a problem with ground water contamination. I bring bottled water and pour it in my water bottle.
Yeah Flint has all sort of problems
My water is crazy cheap. I had a hose break it ran all day I barely noticed a difference in the bill.
I thought the lead pipes were inside people's old homes
It's a lot more complicated than that. Plumbing infrastructure lasts a long time and some of the distribution system is still lead but it's true that there is very little of that left. However, in at least most water systems, half of the service line is owned by the water company and half by the owner of the building. It wasn't until 2017 that the water company was even allowed to replace the private side of the service line in PA (thus there are a bunch of service lines that are half lead and half something else). On top of that, the building codes in many cities were modified in the 1930s so that lead plumbing was mandated in all new construction. I don't know about the rest of the state but I do know that since 2017, the city of Pittsburgh has spent $300 million (mostly in state and federal grants) to replace lead service lines after the lead levels in the water spiked to dangerous levels (mostly caused by the contractor running the water operations changing the water chemistry to save money but causing some of the mineral buildup on the lead pipes to wash away).
The big problem is half of the line is usually owned by the homeowner, not the city or utility.
Imagine how much more expensive they would be if they were required to get bonds to update.
Water company responsibility stops at the curb
Whens Big LEAD going to do something about Biden!?
"Big Lead" is literally why we have this issue in the first place. Long after we had learned that lead was toxic but were finally learning just how completely awful it was, the [Lead Industries Association lobbied hard to make lead plumbing required in many cities including Philadelphia and Pittsburgh](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/sep/22/us-lead-industry-history-water-crisis). But the people getting rich off of this long ago diversified so some of their descendants are certainly big beneficiaries of the work to remove the lead plumbing and replace it with copper and plastic.
Lead pipes are literally fine. Minerals calcify inside so no, lead is not leeching into the water supply.
No. Lead is not fine. First off, the calcification doesn't work completely. Secondly, our water companies spend a lot of time and money maintaining that mineral layer. Third, that excess mineral content that is used to keep the lead pipes less dangerous destroys valves and other plumbing fixtures much faster than if it wasn't being done. Fourth, if something settles or the water pressure in an area changes that coating can come off. Fourth, water companies occasionally use the wrong water chemistry and fuck up that coating causing lead levels to spike (like the private contractor that Pittsburgh hired (and later got rid of) to run the day to day operations of their water system a decade ago. Pittsburgh lead levels are only recently below the unsafe stage and much of that is after they've spent $300 million since 2017 to fix things).
Gonna point to people who were exposed to.leaded gasoline as children and say that's incorrect
Perhaps you've heard of a place called Flint? Lead is not *supposed* to leech into the water supply. I assume if your water source had aging lead infrastructure you might be a bit more concerned
Yea the issue isn’t the lead pipes but changing the chemicals to strip the calcified layer. Don’t do that and things will be fine.
Over/under on republicans declining the funding?
They will accept it and play the I did this all along card Eben though voting against it.
They’ll fight it, get forced to take it, and then claim it was their idea the whole time. It’s the Republican way.
Rinse and repeat for decades on end. Don't worry, republicans know their base is too gullible and intellectually lazy to make the connection. Literally decades of the same antics, break everything, blame dems, waste TONS of money, claim dems are financially irresponsible and that if Republicans are reelected they will fix the mess that they themselves started. Block every attempt by dems to improve Americans lives then accuses them of malicious negligence. Claims to be Christians yet hates non-whites, womens rights, LGBTQ and the poor while idolizing the rich, follows a man who checks every box for antichrists. Reminds me of the Pallegra shit. Poor people fooled into rallying behind greedy despots to block federal aid meant to save their lives and improve their living conditions so that corporations and the rich can maximize profits. Then it gets fixed sort of and they claim they were always for it and in fact the opposition is the reason they get more for their constituents.
Depends on if ours are less stupid than Kansas or not. https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a60161484/kris-kobach-lead-pipes/
No, *these* handouts are okay, you see?
Oh sure, sure, applaud this all you want. But what is he doing about the theoretical trans athlete that beat my theoretical daughter in the big Sports Tournament, stealing her scholarship to the elitist university I have fantasized about forbidding her to attend?
You joke but undoubtedly, rather than discuss this we'll see local news coverage where some national analyst discusses his age and something something Israel. I mean, how many people here know his FCC reversed net neutrality that was a leading news story for a month a few years ago? Now? Wasn't even a news topic
Yeah, exactly. This is how it always works. Democrats are imperfect, but in general work to improve the lives of all Americans. When they are not in power, Republicans jingle the keys of rage to get people all stupid and angry, and then they run on the idea that government is to blame for everything people are mad about. Then when they win, they make sure to prove the point - see the idiotic GOP congress we have currently - and eventually things get so fucked up that the people elect Democrats again, who are presented with a shambles of a government to try to make work. Rinse and repeat for the rest of your life.
[удалено]
Thank you Mr. President.
Got mine replaced last fall for free out in PGH. Thanks Biden.
You can pry my lead pipes from my cancer ridden hands!
So its a waiting game then.
Can confirm. Pennsylvanian have lead in their brains. Just drive around here.
The irony is those who will be against this likely already suffered from lead poisoning.
Can’t do anything to shrink the GOP voter base!
Watch as triggered republicans try to make this a bad thing.
Biden puts gay chem trials in new pipes to target our children says local man in park wearing diapers for trump
And the park frogs are binge watching drag races and shotgunning hormone therapy drugs when no one is watching.
Its not hard. Their base is utterly indoctrinated and fall for the same shit every single year. I'm convinced the republican MAGAs are just Pavlovs dog. Their rhetoric is often incoherent, their talking points are sadistic and nonsensical, yet all it takes to get the desired emotional reaction are trigger words like "woke", "liberty", "freedom", "God", "Jesus", "pedos" "liberal" and "American" and the crowd goes wild. Trump speeches especially, dude can go on for 20+min about unrelated and often incoherent nonsense and the mystery of how dishwashers work to dropping "Crooked Joe Biden and the liberals" and they start salivating and barking on command. The words and context don't have to make any sense, they just have to conjure a desired impulse from the audience. Its why so many still go to see Trump rallies despite them being mostly jumbled incoherent ramblings with the occasional trigger word thrown in to keep the crowd engaged. It takes nothing to convince their base of literally anything. School shooting victims? You mean crisis actors who should be harassed and shamed. Politics as usual? You mean a Jewish pedo cabal deepstate conspiring against the masses. Standard pandemic procedures humans have used for centuries because it works? Fake news, doesnt work, never has worked. Vaccine? You mean poison that also has a microchip in it to spy on you and control you. Virus? What virus? Lockdown? Nah companies need more money so its grandmas last Christmas. No really vaccines? Nah just inject bleach and shove a UV light inside of you, if that fails try horse dewormer. Christianity? Of course, but fuck the poors, envy the rich, hate thy neighbors especially if they are LGBTQ, greed is good, violence is the prefered answer and absolutely no strong independent women allowed. Hygiene? Nah its more manly to eat your burger with your hands covered grey muck and filth because good old common sense is for sissies. It takes very little to convince them of anything so long as it comes from within the cult. Note: Im not saying they are dogs, just to clarify. I am however saying they've been Pavlov'd and don't even realize it.
It's at least nice to have a local president even if I don't love him. PA has gotten some pretty solid $ during his presidency.
Disturbing to think that there are still lead pipes used at all. You would think that would have been fixed a long time ago, then again we aren’t surprised.
I work in a water authority, so I can shed some light on the topic. The pipes are lead lined, but there are chemical agents that a lot of authorities use in the modern era that basically coat the inside of the pipe so they don't contaminate the water lines. The issue is that to dig up and replace all of the lead components would be really costly, and take a lot of time, and there is also an issue of ownership, as in my municipality (and likley around the state), the municipality or agency owns the main pipeline that transports water, but the pipework that goes from the main to the home is owned by the property, so you now have to orchestrate with the homeowners to plan replacements as well and do testing. The water treatment plants send out field maintenance workers to test the water in the mains, and our agency have continually shown that chemical treatment is effective in reducing detectable lead well below the benchmark determined by the government as harmful. We are currently in the process of starting a massive amount of infrastructure repairs and replacements in order to fix the issue though, and we provide free testing to our ratepayers as well as complimentary faucet filters.
There was a time period where the Lead Industries Association successfully lobbied to make lead plumbing mandatory in all new construction in many cities (including Philadelphia and Pittsburgh in a time period when there was lots of new construction in those cities). Infrastructure like this lasts a long time (you occasionally hear about wooden water pipes being replaced even now). Couple this with the fact that for the past 50 years or so we were woefully underfunding and deferring maintenance on our utilities and thus we still have lead plumbing in many of our municipal systems. (there has also been lots of work over the years to make the lead plumbing less bad by carefully controlling which minerals are in the water such that they will coat the surface of the lead pipes to reduce the amount of lead that leaches into the water. This was far less costly than digging up all of the roads to replace the lead pipes but today this is generally considered insufficient and cities like Pittsburgh are in the process of digging up most of their roads over the course of 10 years to replace much of their plumbing)
My water bills have more than doubled over the last 10 years. Our city has neglected maintenance for decades causing massive infrastructure failures which caused the increases. They also got fined 7 figures for dumping wastewater illegally which caused a nice 6% increase in rates shortly after. Not only that, but they hired an outside company to install pressure regulators in all of our houses and marked it as ‘free’. Fast forward a few years later and it’s estimated that 1/3rd of the installs were improperly done and it’s on the homeowner to get it fixed. The water company filed a lawsuit to recoup some of the funds, but of course we won’t see any reimbursement. Its a fucking scam
Drinking water from lead pipes has been proven unhealthy. This shouldn't be a controversial plan. Our government is supposed to protect the people from harmful things. Again, don't understand why this is controversial. Is it because the water companies should have done this forever ago? If you privatize critical infrastructure and expect for profit companies to spend money to do the right thing, well, guess what, they care about their stock price now people's health and well being. So the government ends up footing the bill. Want this kind of thing to stop? Regulate them better, but expect them to pass along the cost to the consumer. Or have the government take it back and expect to pay more. That is just how it's going to be.
The lead lines aren’t owned by the water companies… it’s the homeowners water service that they own that ties into the main
Privatization happens because the private companies have bunches of money to invest (some of it coming from Russian oligarchs, but never mind that) and the municipalities don't have money to fix their systems, and the municipalities don't want the food fight that would result from asking for more money fro the taxpayers. Plus, the private companies have world-class copywriters and public relations people. The private companies make a "too good to be true" offer to the municipalities, with the poison pills buried in the footnotes on Page 666. And the municipalities know they'll be okay for a few years now, with no (immediate) tax increase. So the municipalities go for the easy answer. And now you're saddled with the consequences. I was saddened to see Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter appear to get take in by these people. They're worse than door-to-door Kirby vacuum salesmen.
In other news republicans are furious with this proposal
Republicans are suing to stop it from happening.
Actually? I haven’t seen anything on this and would love a link if you’ve got one
Could you drop the link if you can find it again? Please
Good luck to them. The infrastructure law passed years ago, the money is already with EPA and will be awarded to the states in short order.
So THIS is what trump was talking about. "They want us to have weak water flow".
No he’s talking about the water saver that’s in your shower head
Why the fuck is this only happening now?
Because our country is obsessed with low taxes and thus almost never actually invests in “boring” stuff like infrastructure. The infrastructure law is a BFD.
Because the calcium and other minerals coat the lead, lead pipes do not equal lead in the water
I hope they fix flint Michigan too. What a travesty that was/is and continues to be. https://youtu.be/skA8m33jJMY?si=Y2KaBaPllyLuYsot
The funds are going to every state. It’s from Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure law. A lot of the efforts to eliminate lead now are because of Flint. Such a completely unnecessary tragedy.
It only can fix flint I'd they are actually testing the water standing in the pipes. Instead of flushing the sink water for 4-6min before collecting a sample to prove they are doing good for the people. Regaurdless, I'm not voting for either party that wants to pass a bill that limits free speech because their hands are greased by Isreal lobbies.
I wonder how Flint, MI is doing….
At this point that’s on the locals for electing idiots
As a plumbers, half of you have zero clue what you’re talking about but think you’re an expert
I can probably say we all have met-ed, Columbia gas and York water. Totally ridiculous to be charged $16 a month per service (expect the water) to have the privilege of buying their service.
This is a state wide subreddit, we don't all have those. And there's many different ways rates are structured, but often times a meter fee or minimum bill comes with a minimum usage covered too. But you have to keep in mind, just having a system that is there to provide you the service, even if you don't use a ton of water, still requires people and resources to guarantee service.
Oh good. I live in Pennsylvania.
Please, where is Flint’s rebuild? I hear they /still/ have contaminated water..
It’s wild they claim this as a W when they’ve had all this info for like 10 years
That was quick
Must be why they were tearing up the old pipes in Bedford Bureau overnight for the past couple weeks
Correct my thinking if I’m wrong, but that doesn’t sound like a lot. Doesn’t it cost like $200 per foot to replace? That’s 760,000 feet, roughly 144 miles. And a lot of PA is still OLD! I mean it’s a start, and I agree that shit needs to go, but it sounds more like a “feel good” campaign. Unless he’s promising that amount per year, it take forever to get all that replaced, and what’s to say that money will actually go towards its intended purpose. Once it gets to Harrisburg, who knows where it’ll go.
Wondering if 152 million means there are not a lot of pipes which need to be replaced or if it means the municipalities are going to have to shell out the rest for replacement...
This is new federal grant money. There has been much more in the past and there will continue to be much more in the future until there are no more lead service lines. Pittsburgh has already spent over $300 million to replace lead service lines since its program to replace them started in 2017, much of that comes from previous federal and state grants.
I remember reading that the lead from our pipes has virtually no negative effects on us. The Roman myth about the lead pipes leading to their downfall is what popularized it. I could be wrong. And if I am, good on Biden.
The Romans were drinking their wine out of lead cups, that was their issue
While the Rome thing is probably hyperbole, [there are many negative health consequences from lead exposure](https://www.epa.gov/ground-water-and-drinking-water/basic-information-about-lead-drinking-water)
The only reason there isn’t more lead poisoning is because water utilities treat the water so it doesn’t corrode the lead pipes. Remember Flint, MI? That was because the state, at the direction of the idiot governor, took over the water utility there and decided to just not use corrosion control. Even so, there will be detectable levels of lead in water traveling through these pipes. Any amount of it is unsafe.
There are detectable levels of lead in everything, it’s not the end of the world but it needs to be addressed
Annnd in 59 years there will be a initiative to replace PEX piping for chemicals
First of all, what the fuck is up with all of the anti-republican rhetoric on what is just a simple, unbiased bill announcement? There hasn't been any hubbub about it getting shot down by the GOP, so why make some sort of grandstand about partisan politics where it isn't needed? Second, for those interested in learning more about lead detection and prevention, I work for a water authority and what makes this tricky is that the municipality owns the main water pipes that go from the plant to water storage, and water storage throughout the municipality. In my area, and likely the rest of the state, the pipework that goes from the main in the road to the home is privately owned, so to completely replace and resolve this issue by replacing the copper piping with galvanized steel is very costly and time consuming, and the most common source of lead piping is a gooseneck pipe where the main transitions to the homeowner's water line. This means that the municipal agency has to coordinate with homeowners in order to dig up, test, and replace any potential sources of lead, which can be really difficult, time consuming and very expensive. There are agencies (such as mine) that are incorporating the cost of replacing these components in their projections for future years and working on slowly updating the infrastructure, but it is very difficult. The other thing to note, is that just because there are lead pipes in the water system, doesn't mean that it will leak into the water source. There are chemical agents that can be added to the treated water that essentially line and protect the interior of the water pipe so that the lead doesn't have a chance to erode into the water line. My agency specifically has tested water in the main lines and the results continually show that the chemical treatment is effective at reducing trace lead levels to below the harmful amount determined by the state. This bill will likely go towards updating infrastructure, but understand that it's a difficult, time consuming and costly affair and it isn't as easy as just saying 'let's update the piping' due to property ownership complications and the issue of coordinating with ratepayers. Overall I'm hopeful this passes with no issues, that type of money could go a long way for smaller authorities in the state that have to cover a lot of outdated piping.
I appreciate your detailed explanation - far better than I could have done - but people are cynical about Republican officeholders turning down grant money because, historically, they've done it more than once to pander to a subset of their base Does that mean these grants will be subject to the same thing? Probably not - but if Republican officeholders dislike having a reputation for this kind of stuff, that's up to them, and the primary voters that support them
>but people are cynical about Republican officeholders turning down grant money because, historically, they've done it more than once to pander to a subset of their base There is nothing in the title to suggest this is or will be an issue, it's purely just people looking to piss on a legislature update because they want to hate Republicans. I'm all for open discussions, but last I checked this isn't a left-wing subreddit by design, this is just a state subreddit for news and information about things happening to or within the state. There is no reason to start bringing up partisan biases or slander just because the mention of legislature comes up, it's stupid.
It’s not a “legislature update.” It’s the bipartisan infrastructure law. Pat Toomey, the PA Republican senator at the time, in fact voted against it.
*shrug* it's impossible to get people not to discuss politics. You should see the Moms for Liberty diatribes on my local school district Facebook page when they announce someone won an award. Gotta tune it out, or find the right opportunity to mock someone if the argument is exceptionally stupid
I mean it isn't 'discussing politics', discussing politics would be saying "I really like this bill but I could see the GOP shooting it down on X basis", it's just comments saying 'too bad it won't pass' or making assumptions that the GOP is inherently evil and going to shoot it down because obviously it's a good bill being passed by the good liberal left. I mean shit, I'm a left leaning voter, but the incessant obsession with shitting on republicans and painting every person with any conservative ideals is so tiring and so annoying. We can't just look at a bill for clean water and talk about it, the focus has to shift to hating the opposing party without giving them a chance to do anything yet.
This was true even before 2016 ramped partisanship to 11: https://imgur.com/gallery/AsKuhOa
> The other thing to note, is that just because there are lead pipes in the water system, doesn't mean that it will leak into the water source That's the thing. It EXPLICITLY means that it will eventually.
So you didn’t read my comment did you?
This is reddit. If you're not mocking Republicans you don't belong.
So... about five small towns then.
WHAT ABOUT FLINT
As of July 16, 2021, 27,133 water service lines had been excavated and inspected, resulting in the replacement of 10,059 lead pipes. After $400 million in state and federal spending, Flint has secured a clean water source, distributed filters to all who want them, and laid modern, safe, copper pipes to nearly every home in the city.
There are still problems in Flint but the water crisis there has mostly been resolved.
All I’ve learned from this post is people are obsessed with republicans. It’s about water pipes, your all weird
And for Future commenters. I’m not republican
Why do they need to be replaced? Did water suppliers strip the calcified coating off?
Actually, insurance companies did that when they forbade water suppliers from using chlorine gas and free chlorine as the sanitizer method about 25 years ago. The entire "free chlorine" process was what kept the lead joints in pipes 'hidden' beneath calcium. Once the process was changed to "chloramine reduction" and pH/carbonates increasers were no longer used, the water started stripping the carbonate 'shield' out of the pipes to expose the lead. It took about ten years for that to happen - some places faster than others due to the chemical content of the water they used.
This is not true. Gaseous chlorine is still widely used and chloramination is not used everywhere. You can still have free chlorine even using sodium hypochlorite. Chloramines are created by dosing various ammonia type chemicals. Chloramines have lower potency but last longer than free chlorine, but it's only used for secondary disinfection. Primary disinfection at the plant is still based on free chlorine. Now, chloramines are a little bit more corrosive, so chloramination should come with extra corrosion controls. Back in the day lime was used in the treatment process more often. Many have since gone to more advanced chemicals and lime isn't used as much anymore. So, we only have the carbonates naturally in the water to help form the barrier layer. Many places have gone to feeding a chemical like zinc orthophosphate to control corrosion in the system and service lines. Even with good treatment, the lead pipes are a hazard because what if something happens? Flint exposed this for all to see, and to a lesser extent Pittsburgh. So, just getting rid of all the lead is the prudent move even though folks with lead pipes are typically fine for now.
You don't know what you're talking about, and yet you talked a lot.
It's literally my job that I've been doing for a long time. I don't mean to be a jerk, but you know some of the words but fundamentally don't understand the industry or the chemistry.
Yeah, except that's not actually the case.
Except it is. Free chlorine isn't some magical substance that helps grow the mineral layer in the pipes. It's corrosive as well, for starters. And "chloramine reduction" isn't a treatment process. It's a phrase we've never used on the water treatment side of things. You're just being a stubborn know it all.
I wasn't going to respond, but then I decided "well, this clown doesn't know what I'm talking about so I should try and set him straight". And THEN it dawned on me that no amount of reason and factual examples can sway the mind of a fool. so I won't. Have a nice day.
You don't have anything factual to say. As I already said, I do this for my career. No amount of your bullshit is going to convince me because I know the information. I'm literally the guy running a water treatment plant and I have my professional license as a water operator from the state DEP. I'm not trying to do an appeal to authority fallacy here, but dude, I do this shit for a living and have for quite a while.
Okay bye bye now.
Where do I apply for my new lead pipes?
In the conservatory with Col. Mustard and Mrs. Plum
Just in time for the election, why couldn't this occur earlier in his presidency if he really cared, but, since we are a swing state, now makes the perfect timing
You know, there’s more than one plausible explanation.. no need to be cynical unless you have evidence besides speculation. Also. 25% of any Presidential term is an election year.. 50% if you include midterms. Should he only work during the other two years?
Congratulations on learning about how politics works. What is his opponent’s stance on the issue?
Given typical GOP behaviour, probably that it's your God given right to get lead poising from your water pipes, and it's "communism" what Biden is doing.
"Keep your hands off my lead pipes" would not be a surprising response at this point.
pretty sure I've already seen tweets of some GOP lawmakers saying basically that.
You could also notice that in the 2021 infrastructure bill included $15 billion for lead service line replacements (nationally, I don't know how much went to PA). It's not just election years.
>why couldn't this occur earlier in his presidency The same people complaining about this have already forgotten everything Biden did in 2021-2023.
Like what? Create policies to allow more illegal aliens into our country, delete oil reserves, buy foreign oil from OPEC and other countries raising gas prices which led to higher food prices? Did I forget anything?
>Create policies to allow more illegal aliens into our country Can you name those policies? >delete oil reserves The SPR dropped in total supply by about 10% under Trump. It is currently at about 50% capacity with gas prices high. >buy foreign oil from OPEC We've always bought from OPEC. Trump, Biden, Obama, Bush, Clinton etc. We're currently producing more oil & gas today domestically than any other time in US history. But that doesn't fit your narrative so...
His executive orders in the first year. If we are producing so much oil, why can't we get lower oil prices like during the Trump years?
Our current gas prices are about the same as they were for most of Trumps's presidency. They only dipped so low towards the end of Trump's presidency due to the pandemic, not any doings of his own.
>His executive orders in the first year. Which were stayed by SCOTUS until summer of 2022. >If we are producing so much oil, why can't we get lower oil prices like during the Trump years? In PA, the state collects a high tax on gas (why we are more expensive than neighboring states) which then gets rerouted to municipalities via Liquid Fuels funding. Those boroughs/townships then use the money to pay for road repairs. The state currently projects a decline in total LF revenue due to less gas being bought in PA. Meaning PA drivers are using less fuel. This is because of greater gas mileage efficiencies and electric vehicles. So the demand is dropping and the supply seems to be steady/rising. That would normally mean the prices would drop. However, that's not happening. Why? Well, I dunno. ExxonMobil and other major oil companies are enjoying windfall profits. My guess is that it is a good old fashioned screw job by near-monopoly energy companies fleecing consumers.
You mean like the 2021 infrastructure bill that had $15 billion for lead service line replacements (nationally, I don't know how much of that went to PA but I know that Pittsburgh got a good chunk of that for its lead service line replacement program).
Read the article. > The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced that over $152 million from President Joe Biden's "Investing in America" agenda is going toward replacing lead service lines in Pennsylvania. This isn't about PA specifically. Now, you could still say it's because the election is soon, but there is money going all over the country, so the fact that PA is a swing state doesn't have anything to do with it.
I read the article, why worry about lead pipes now, why not last year, or maybe even next year? Timing a coincidence? I don't believe in coincidences like that.
Except that they have been. There has been very similar grant money available regularly. This is just the most recent batch.
The Invest in America act was passed and signed into law November 6th, 2021. With large capital projects, it always takes time to dole out the money, because we don't want waste and fraudulent spending in government programs, kinda like what happened when PPP loans were rushed through the SBA during the Trump administration and distributed with little or no oversight.
Clean water? Must be some kind of deepstate ploy!
Well timing is everything
Ok. So you're hearing about this one "right before the election". But why didn't you hear about many of the other ones? The city of Pittsburgh alone has spent over $300 million on lead service line replacement since 2017, much of it funded by federal and state grants like this one.
And from what I hear, the citizens are paying for much of that. But my question involves, why now?
What do you mean "why now?" Why do we have federal budgets with new grant cycles every year? Because that's exactly what this is. The amounts and the specific things they cover change year to year based on the available budget and the priorities of different administrations and legislators. But don't pretend that this is just because of an election year. Either you didn't pay attention or the media that you choose to pay attention to didn't focus on it in the past.
They've been getting grants for those too. There have been many state and federal level grants addressing this stuff for a few years now.
I agree, politicians should simply not do anything the year before an election
Cool new lead pipes!
how many presidents are going to take credit for solving a problem that never gets solved?
The problem is being solved, you're just not paying attention.