WMC Opposes Lead Pipes Bill
Business lobbyist opposes loans to homeowners to replace pipes.
Corroded pipes. Photo courtesy of Siddhartha Roy of FlintWaterStudy.org.
The state’s largest business group says it opposes bipartisan bills that would help Wisconsin residents get rid of lead water pipes, which can contaminate people’s drinking water.
The measures, Assembly Bill 78 and Senate Bill 48, sponsored by GOP Sen. Rob Cowles, of Green Bay, and Rep. Jeremy Thiesfeldt, of Fond du Lac, would allow local water utilities to make grants or cheap loans to help homeowners remove lead water service pipes from the curb to their homes. Currently, state law allows water utilities to only replace pipes from the street to a homeowner’s property line. The average cost to replace a water pipe between a curb and a house is about $3,600.
Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce (WMC) opposes the current measures, saying they would create a “new social welfare program.”
WMC, which is the only special interest group on record opposing the bills, is a political heavyweight when it comes to state policy and spending. The group has spent more than $18 million since 2010 on undisclosed, outside electioneering activities to support Republican and conservative legislative and statewide candidates. But because of the power of WMC, the bills may not get to the floor. Lucas Webber, WMC’s director of environmental energy policy testified against them. He is the former policy director and deputy chief of staff for Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald.
The bills have drawn support from about four dozen Democratic and Republican legislators, and from about 20 lobbying groups representing public health officials, medical professionals, environmental groups, cities, and the real estate industry.
As reporter Steve Verburg wrote in the Wisconsin State Journal, the dangers of lead in the water are extreme. “The U.S. Centers for Disease Control says there is no safe blood lead level in children. Tiny lead particles that flake off into running water can accumulate in the body to cause irreversible brain damage to young children.”
The presence of lead in drinking water has been known for decades, but awareness increased across the country in 2015 due to a public health crisis in Flint, Mich. caused by high lead levels in the city’s drinking water system.
More about the Lead Crisis
- MPS Closing Three More Schools Due To Lead Hazards - Jeramey Jannene - Mar 13th, 2025
- MPS Will Reopen School Shuttered Because of Lead Dust - Jeramey Jannene - Mar 12th, 2025
- Trowbridge Street School Won’t Reopen Monday, to Allow More Time for Deep Cleaning of Lead Dust - Milwaukee Public Schools - Mar 7th, 2025
- Health Department Will Investigate 10 More Schools For Lead Issues - Jeramey Jannene - Mar 7th, 2025
- MKE County: County Expands Lead Abatement For Low-Income Homes - Graham Kilmer - Mar 1st, 2025
- Health Department Shutters MPS School Over Lead Concerns - Jeramey Jannene - Feb 28th, 2025
- Health Department May Shut Down Some Milwaukee Schools With High Lead Levels - Evan Casey - Feb 24th, 2025
- Alderwoman Coggs introduces file to discuss MPS lead exposure issues - Ald. Milele Coggs - Feb 20th, 2025
- Gov. Evers’ biennial state budget prioritizes clean water, clean energy, and public lands for Wisconsin - Wisconsin Conservation Voters - Feb 18th, 2025
- Gov. Evers Announces Comprehensive Plan to Ensure Clean Water for Kids and Families in 2025 Year of the Kid - Gov. Tony Evers - Feb 18th, 2025
Read more about Lead Crisis here
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Congrats, Steve, on this endeavor, vital to health and well-being. There has been a cluster of people around Lake Mendota (husbands and wives) who have all died of pancreatic cancer. I have heard that pipe drainage has been eliminated from the cause. How, What, Why? Also, studies may be ongoing as to why couples are both dying of pancreatic cancer, which is important. This is an essential area of study when a cluster of deaths within the Lake area are dead. What is the link? Who is investigating. Look forward to hearing back on this life and death issue.
History is replete with causes obfuscated (you know them so no need for examples) or relevant studies are not done until too many have died.What can be done? We do?
Hope to hear back.
Sincerely,
Maureen
Any word about corporate welfare or lobbyist/politician welfare???? We see where WMC places its heart – but if there are no workers or consumers to buy the stuff they “man -u-fracture”, what then?
Perhaps they WMC needs some FORWARD looking ideas – consider the triple bottom line. If we have no livable earth and no people living, what then? Perhaps some of the “madness” we see in our society is from lead in our pipes as has been said of the Fall of the Roman Empire.
I am surprised the WMC is opposed. This plan seems like a win-win-win. New, copper pipes are manufactured, plumbing contractors are employed to do the work, and public health is improved. What does the WMC stand to lose under this scenario? I don’t follow.
I love the WMC defense of “but…but…there could be other lead pipes in the building so replacing the water main isn’t worth it”.
But most troubling is the continued opposition to anything that can be construed as “socialist”, even when that’s as simple as spreading the costs for something large to everyone. It’s the equivalent of the suburban grandparents that realize they shouldn’t be paying for schools anymore because their kids aren’t in it any more.
Tip for UM: Make the links to the commentary by WMC more prominent. That’s where the real meat is and might make for better commentary down here in this section if everyone’s read that part first.
What is there to do as a citizen to help stop this? Should we be writing into someone to let them know our thoughts about needing support to help replace lead pipes? Is it too late?