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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 114 / Wednesday, June 16, 2021 / Rules and Regulations
more lead than adults do, and their brains and nervous systems are more sensitive to the damaging effects of lead.
EPA estimates that drinking water can make up 20 percent or more of a persons total exposure to lead. Infants who consume mostly formula mixed with tap water can, depending on the level of lead in the system and other sources of lead in the home, receive 40
to 60 percent of their exposure to lead from drinking water used in the formula. Scientists have linked leads effects on the brain with lowered intelligence quotient IQ and attention disorders in children. Young children and infants are particularly vulnerable to lead because the physical and behavioral effects of lead occur at lower exposure levels in children than in adults. During pregnancy, lead exposure may affect prenatal brain development.
Lead is stored in the bones and it can be released later in life. Even at low levels of lead in blood, there is an increased risk of health effects in children e.g., less than 5 micrograms per deciliter and adults e.g., less than 10 micrograms per deciliter.
The 2013 Integrated Science Assessment for Lead and the Health and Human Services National Toxicology Program Monograph on Health Effects of Low-Level Lead have both documented the association between lead and adverse cardiovascular effects, renal effects, reproductive effects, immunological effects, neurological effects, and cancer. EPAs Integrated Risk Information System IRIS
Chemical Assessment Summary provides additional health effects information on lead.
Because of disparities in the quality of housing, community economic status, and access to medical care, lead in drinking water and other media disproportionately affects lower-income people. Minority and low-income children are more likely to live in proximity to lead-emitting industries and to live in urban areas, which are more likely to have contaminated soils, contributing to their overall exposure.
Additionally, non-Hispanic black individuals are more than twice as likely as non-Hispanic whites to live in moderately or severely substandard housing, which is more likely to present risks from deteriorating lead based paint. The disparate exposure to all sources of environmental lead experienced by low-income and minority populations may be exacerbated because of their more limited resources for remediating lead service lines, which if present in a home, can be a significant source of lead exposure.

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For example, stakeholders have raised concerns that, to the extent water systems rely on homeowners to pay for replacement of customer-owned portions of lines, lower-income homeowners may be unable to afford to replace lines, resulting in disparate levels of protection. In addition, a higher incidence of renting among lower-income people may prevent residents from removing lines where the property owner does not consent or finance replacement of the customerowned portion of the line. Moreover, the crisis in Flint, Michigan, has brought increased attention to the challenge of lead in drinking water systems across the country.
Prior to EPAs actions to delay the effective and compliance dates of the LCRR, litigants and stakeholders had expressed a wide range of concerns about the LCRRs requirements that addressed both the rules ability to protect public health and the implementation burden that will be placed on systems and states. Specific components of the rule for which concerns have been raised include: The 15 parts per billion ppb action level;
the 10 ppb trigger level; the lead service line inventory requirements, the lead service line replacement requirements;
the flexibility given to small systems;
and the sampling of drinking water at schools and child care facilities.
Given the paramount significance to the publics health for ensuring that lead in drinking water is adequately addressed under the SDWA, and the concerns raised by litigants and other stakeholders about the LCRR, it is critically important that EPAs review of the LCRR be deliberate and have the benefit of meaningful engagement with the affected public, including overburdened and underserved communities disproportionately affected by exposure to lead, prior to the rule going into effect.
III. Summary of Public Comments on the Extension of the Effective and Compliance Dates of the LCRR and EPAs Responses In the proposed rulemaking, EPA
solicited public comment on the duration of the effective date and compliance date extensions and whether the compliance date extension should apply to the entire LCRR or certain components of the final rule. A
summary of the comments received on the extensions, as well as the agencys responses is provided in this section.
The majority of commenters expressed support for the delay of the effective and compliance dates of the LCRR. These commenters, representing
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states, water systems, environmental and public health organizations, provided a number of reasons for their support as well as suggestions for how EPA should utilize the additional time.
Commenters indicated that the delay would allow time for the agency to conduct a more thorough and complete review, collect and analyze new data, engage with stakeholders, and hold public meetings to solicit further comment on the LCRR as it relates to state and local implementation of drinking water standards, public health protections, lead in school drinking water issues, and specifically to listen to people who are living in communities disproportionately affected by exposure to lead and underserved communities suffering from lead-contaminated drinking water about their recommendations for the rule. Several commenters urged EPA to suspend the March 16, 2021 effective date of the LCRR to review the rule and initiate a new rulemaking to address issues with the rule published in the Federal Register on January 15, 2021 at 86 FR
4198. Commenters also expressed support for the 9-month compliance date extension from the current compliance date of January 16, 2024.
Commenters stated that if the rules effective date were delayed from March 16, 2021, to December 16, 2021, the compliance date should be delayed the same amount of time, ensuring that utilities do not lose any of the time they had been expecting to have available to implement the rule once there is regulatory certainty. Additional commenters indicated that the extension of the compliance date would allow resource-constrained systems and communities needed time to implement the regulatory requirements of the LCRR
in general, and more specifically, the lead service line LSL inventory and school and child care facility monitoring requirements. Two commenters indicated that the compliance date should be delayed as long as possible.
EPA agrees with commenters that support a delay of the effective date of the LCRR to December 16, 2021. This time is necessary and sufficient to accommodate a thorough review of the requirements of the LCRR and engage with a wide range of stakeholders, including disproportionally affected and underserved communities on the issue of controlling lead in drinking water.
The additional 6-month delay of the June 17, 2021 effective date to December 16, 2021, is necessary to develop, publicize, and implement a public engagement process that accommodates
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