President Obama signed the AMWA-supported “Community Fire Safety Act” (H.R. 3588) into law last month just before departing for his holiday vacation, ensuring that fire hydrants are not subject to new lead-content requirements for pipes and plumbing fixtures that took effect on January 4.
With the President’s signature the measure became Public Law 113-64. The new law simply adds fire hydrants to a list of products (such as toilets and shower valves) that are statutorily exempt from the new lead standards because they do not typically serve as sources of water used for human consumption.
Legislative action on the topic became necessary in October when EPA announced that fire hydrants would be covered by the new standards, which lowered allowable lead in newly installed pipes and plumbing fixtures from 8 percent to a weighted average of 0.25 percent with respect to a pipes’ wetted surface. Congress acted quickly in December to exempt hydrants at the urging of AMWA and other water industry organizations who warned the lower standards would leave communities with millions of dollars worth of unusable fire hydrant inventories while delivering virtually no public health benefit.