WASHINGTON, D.C. — Town Board member Maureen Cunningham represented the Town of Bethlehem in the White House last week at the inaugural meeting of the Biden-Harris Get the Lead Out Partnership. The goal of the partnership is to accelerate the replacement of lead service lines and pipes while creating good paying jobs and prioritizing lead remediation efforts nationwide.
The Town of Bethlehem has already started working towards its goal of replacing 100 percent of their lead service lines in the next decade. The Town began an inventory of its 12,000 water service lines in 2021 to determine where lead pipes are still present. So far, they have identified the types of pipes on approximately 6,800 of the public-side lines and 3,600 of the private side lines. Determining where lead pipes are present is a vital first step towards getting state and federal funds to help replace them.
“Getting lead out of water systems is a public health priority that I have been leading nationwide,” said Maureen Cunningham, Town Board member and Chief Strategy Officer and Director of Water at the Environmental Policy Innovation Center. “I’m proud that the Town of Bethlehem is taking proactive action on this vital initiative to make our excellent public water system even better.”
