This commentary is by Justine Cook, a resident of Dorset.
“Replacing lead water pipes with plastic could raise new safety issues” was published last August in Scientific American, and should raise concerns with water districts across Vermont, civil engineers, and the Department of Environmental Conservation in Montpelier.
Robin Lloyd, a Scientific American contributing editor, summarizes the emerging research on plastic pipes and reveals a critical problem: The EPA’s focus on water pipes and plumbing materials is to control lead. The plastic pipe industry and certification organizations have not developed accurate enough testing to detect a wide array of contaminants from the materials themselves, nor studied how those contaminants affect human health.
Vermont is poised to receive $400 million in a historic investment of federal money to upgrade its water infrastructure, according to Neil Kamman, director of Vermont’s Water Investment Division, as reported in VTDigger. Nationally, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is committing $50 billion to the EPA for the nation’s water. Bluefield Research, a global water analysis firm, says: “Because plastic pipes have a cheaper upfront cost than legacy materials such as copper, ductile iron and steel, plastic is forecast to make up nearly 80 percent of the nation’s pipe inventory by 2030.”
According to Lloyd, researchers at Virginia Tech showed the growth of Legionella pneumophila (the bacterium that causes Legionnaires’ disease) under certain conditions in PEX systems. Another research team at Purdue University, headed by Andrew Whelton, has published multiple peer-reviewed studies about contaminants, including toluene, in water in contact with various types of plastic pipes.
The emerging science points to three ways plastic pipes can affect drinking water.
First, plastic pipes themselves, depending on composition, can leach toxic chemicals.
Second, polluted soils and groundwater can permeate plastic pipes, unlike traditional materials.
Third, in the event of a structure fire or wildfires, plastic pipes melt and can rapidly pollute drinking water systems as well as release carcinogens into the air, such as benzene, which can spread over vast areas. In tragic scenarios, melting plastic water mains have also hindered firefighting.
The International Association of Fire Fighters and the United Association of Plumbers, Fitters, Welders and Service Techs released a joint statement on March 31, 2019, calling for the restriction of plastics in building. “The IAFF has been in the forefront opposing the expanded use of plastics and other cancer-causing products in construction and other uses,” said (General President Harold) Schaitberger, according to an association newsletter. “We know that when plastics burn, they emit carcinogens, which causes occupational illnesses and deaths among our members and pose risks to the public as well.”
Despite scientists insisting there are too many unknowns about whether contaminants from plastic pipes pose a risk to human health, Lloyd reports, “The EPA has set no legally enforceable federal standards for many of these contaminants if they turn up in drinking water.” Without EPA regulation, state agencies have no basis to restrict the use of plastic pipes. Indeed, federal and state funding may require lowest bid options, which often means plastic.
An exception when copper must be used on smaller lines going in the ground happens if the soil tests positive for certain pollutants because those chemicals can permeate plastic. Depending on the unique water project, plastic may be necessary, but engineers should look at Europe’s more aggressive guidelines on which plastic systems are safest because of more rigorous testing.
If you are a Vermont citizen with a struggling municipal water system, write to our senators and ask them to press the EPA for flexibility in funding traditional pipe materials. Write to the EPA directly, and ask for a pause on plastic pipes until regulatory standards and testing have caught up with the latest science.
The next generation shouldn’t have to undo the widespread use of plastic pipes, as we are now with lead.
We’ve been down this road before. A material is considered safe until the environmental and health impacts become devastating, and then it isn’t. Consider a few sobering facts:
- Microscopic plastic is now part of the fossil record on earth. Contamination increases in sedimentary layers exponentially from the 1940s onward.
- Studies have found microplastics in random samples of human blood, lung tissue, and in the placentas of newborn babies.
- The European Union has launched CUSP — five research consortia with 75 organizations from 21 countries to study the impact of micro- and nanoplastics on human health.
- World Wildlife Fund estimates Americans consume the equivalent of a credit card’s worth (5 grams) of microplastic every week through food, water, and air.
- The so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a soup of microplastics twice the size of Texas in the ocean.
- 19% of the world’s oil supply is estimated to be for making plastics by 2040 according to the United Nations Environmental Programme.
Unless plastic is incinerated, which is problematic, it breaks down into smaller and smaller particles that never fully decompose. These particles have infiltrated the food chain and water all over the Earth.
Clearly, human beings cannot live without plastic, but it’s time to restrict its use to what is absolutely necessary. Anyone over 60 years of age knows this is possible.
In upgrading Vermont’s water infrastructure, how can we opt for a cheap solution, and ignore plastic pipes’ carbon and environmental impact, when there are safe, sustainable, recyclable materials that could be used instead?
