Those voices would largely come from the water industry, which had continued advocating for less restrictive regulations, according to interviews and internal documents obtained by APM Reports.
Grevatt, who declined an interview request through a spokesperson, asked the EPA's National Drinking Water Advisory Council (NDWAC), which exists to give stakeholders a voice on water regulations, to create a new workgroup to help revise the Lead and Copper Rule. Instead of allowing the EPA's in-house experts to stay on the job, Grevatt and the Office of Water gave utilities a substantial opening to rewrite the rule.
APM Reports reviewed thousands of pages of internal documents, drafts, technical memos and emails exchanged by members of the NDWAC. These records show that the workgroup largely adopted proposals weakening the Lead and Copper Rule, advocated by members from large metropolitan water utilities. Those proposals heavily influenced the rule that the Trump administration is now trying to finalize.
Utilities of all sizes have pushed the EPA to be more forgiving about lead pipes. They worry that more stringent regulations — without more federal money — would force them to replace more pipes than they could afford.
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The water industry's perspective came to dominate the workgroup for a few reasons. Composition was a big one: An EPA contractor assembled the group, recruiting three state-level regulators, two directors from local public health departments, five public health or environmental advocates, and five employees from water utilities.
Missing were the EPA's scientists and experts. They were invited to give presentations to the group about the Lead and Copper Rule, but none were voting members.
‘So we could sit there during debates, hearing utter scientific nonsense,’ one EPA scientist told APM Reports. ‘Just because you represent a water utility doesn't mean that you've got an agenda to do the right thing.’
EPA employees told APM Reports they noticed a lack of understanding among some panelists about how the complex rule worked. Two of the members of the workgroup — Chris Wiant of the Caring for Colorado Foundation and Tom Neltner, now a policy director for the Environmental Defense Fund — said they'd encountered the Lead and Copper Rule in passing before they were invited to join, but didn't consider themselves experts.
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In a series of meetings between 2014 and 2015, the NDWAC accepted recommendations designed by utility employees working with one of the water industry's most prominent interest groups, the American Water Works Association, records show.
APM Reports reviewed hundreds of email messages exchanged by the utility employees, who were selected to represent these groups, and the American Water Works Association regulatory affairs director, Steve Via, who coached them throughout the process.
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EPA scientists told APM Reports the plan was dangerously thin on science. Water samples would only be taken from people who asked for them, and there would be no requirement to test in homes with lead service lines. Instead, utilities would keep tabs on water chemistry.
When the NDWAC panel took a final vote in 2015, the more lenient recommendations passed 14-1. The only dissent was Lambrinidou.
At least one major industry group was satisfied: When the American Water Works Association reported back to its members toward the end of the process, the news was mostly good. An internal memo obtained by APM Reports expressed confidence that the EPA would run with the plan that utilities had wanted.
"We expect EPA to follow the recommendations," the memo read, "particularly if they can be characterized as a broad-based consensus agreement."
The association also pointed out how far it had come, considering what the EPA's experts had originally wanted in a new lead regulation back in 2012. "EPA wanted to continue mandatory in-home tap sampling for lead and copper, shift in-home lead monitoring to only [the] highest possible risk locations ... [and] revise the sampling protocol to draw water from inside the lead service line."
That kind of robust sampling would have placed utilities in a "difficult position," the memo stated. More utilities might have found high levels of lead and become responsible for replacing more lead pipes than ever before. It was a scenario the association was happy to have avoided.
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Utilities didn't get everything they'd wanted in the EPA's proposed Lead and Copper Rule. But it was clear to Del Toral whose voices were listened to, and it wasn't the scientists'.
"Industry won," he said. "When you look at what we were trying to do, where we were trying to go and where we ended up in this proposal, it's pretty clear who the winners are. And it's not the people."
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After the draft was released in October, the EPA received nearly 80,000 public comments, some technical, related to testing standards, and others severely critical. Some of the harshest critics are former EPA employees, who were expecting a tougher regulation. ‘This rule should be as aggressive as taking lead out of gasoline and lead out of paint,’ Betsy Southerland, who resigned as a science director in the EPA's Office of Water in 2017, told APM Reports. ‘When will they revise this again? Another 20 years? I'll be dead.’