Sierra Club Asks DC Council to Replace Lead Water Lines & Keep Proposed Soda Tax

Dear Chairman Mendelson,

It was a pleasure to meet with you along with other members of the DC environmental community on May 1 to discuss our FY20 budget priorities. The topic of funding for lead water pipe replacements was front and center at that meeting. The Sierra Club firmly believes that the DC Council must include funds in the FY20 budget to help homeowners and renters with the replacement of toxic lead pipes.

As there are many budget demands this year, Councilmember Mary Cheh has devised an innovative way to fund this bill by adding a 1 percent tax to the cost of sweetened beverages (soda) in DC. This tax should generate $3.2 million in revenue in FY20 and provide initial funding for the Lead Pipe Replacement and Disclosure Amendment Act of 2017 as well as the #ProduceRx program, which seeks to connect healthcare and local agriculture to benefit both community health and the local economy. These monies will also provide funding for the Healthy Students Amendment Act and the Healthy Parks Amendment Act—two laws that were unfunded in the Mayor’s budget, but which will provide critical nutrition assistance to low-income, food-insecure children.

It’s only right that the soda beverage companies should pay for these programs. A 2018 Boston University School of Medicine study found that artificially-sweetened soft drink consumption was associated with a higher risk of stroke and dementia, while a Department of Health Policy and Management study from the Harvard Chan School of Public Health found alarming links between soda consumption among adults that link sugar beverage consumption to a number of health consequences among adults, including weight gain, cardiovascular risk factors, insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. These researchers note that studies among children are more limited and have generally focused on weight gain and dental cavities, as well as insulin resistance to a lesser extent.

We ask the DC Council to protect children from lead poisoning and the decades of devastation it causes, not only for those individuals but also for their loved ones, their communities, and everyone in society.

Meanwhile, thousands of District residents still have drinking water delivered to their homes through lead service pipes, creating a health risk that can have lifelong impacts on children. When DC Water performs partial lead service line replacements (as it has done in recent years at the rate of about 500 homes annually), there is a potential to create a spike in lead releasing from the service line and flowing into drinking glasses and cooking pots. A family can only hope to avoid this if it has $1,000 to $2,000 available to pay for a full replacement, which means that most District residents, especially those with lower incomes and those who do not own their homes, have no choice but to bear the burden of increased health risk. Exposure to lead early in life causes neurotoxicity and permanently injures people through their entire lives.

To address this injustice, in December 2018, the DC Council unanimously passed the Lead Pipe Replacement and Disclosure Amendment Act of 2017 (B22-0507). As introduced, this bill establishes and sets eligibility requirements and an application process for a lead waterline pipe replacement voucher program for income-eligible District residents (the Lead Pipe Replacement Voucher Program). The program, which is to be administered by DC Water, requires owners who rent or sell properties in the District to disclose the presence of certain lead-pipe related conditions prior to purchase or lease of the unit, and requires the Mayor to submit reports to the Council on the implementation of various provisions of the bill.

A fiscal impact analysis found that the program would cost approximately $21 million to implement over the four-year financial plan period, however there are no remaining funds available in the FY19 budget and no funds have been allocated in the Mayor’s draft of the FY20 budget. We respectfully request that you fund this important bill and the other associated initiatives. We furthermore request that you use Councilmember Cheh’s proposed tax on sweetened beverages sold in DC to fund this initiative. We urge the DC Council to take a leadership role by levying this very modest tax on an industry that is negatively impacting DC residents’ health.

Best regards,

Catherine Plume
Vice Chair, Sierra Club DC Chapter

CC:    
Councilmember David Grosso, At-Large
Councilmember Anita Bonds, At-Large
Councilmember Elissa Silverman, At-Large
Councilmember Robert White, At-Large
Councilmember Brianne Nadeau, Ward 1
Councilmember Jack Evans, Ward 2
Councilmember Mary Cheh, Ward 3
Councilmember Brandon Todd, Ward 4
Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie, Ward 5
Councilmember Charles Allen, Ward 6
Councilmember Vincent Gray, Ward 7
Councilmember Trayon White, Ward 8