NAACP Effort to Replace Lead Pipes Carrying Potable Water

WHEREAS, lead in water, potential or detected, from lead pipes is not caused by deliberate actions of current or the original property owners, rather by the then acceptable standards of now outdated municipal building codes prescribed at the time of hook up to properties at construction time; and

WHEREAS, delayed solutions in changing out lead pipes for safer, more acceptable ones, increasingly exacerbate low property values, abandonment of property and property tax collection problems; and 

WHEREAS, federal, state and local government entities have a responsibility to take control of replacement of hazardous lead pipes; and 

WHEREAS, lead pipes which carry water are recognized as not just a localized physical building hazard, but a national concern with health care and education cost implications effecting millions of homes, schools and commercial buildings in the United States of America; and 

WHEREAS, even though Congress has recognized its obligation to assist in mitigating Flint, Michigan's water pipe funding dilemma, this effort falls significantly short of the prolific sweeping reforms needed in assuring the replacement of lead pipes to ensure clean safe drinking water and sanitation; and

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People urges federal, state and local governments to immediately identify funding to address health and environmentally hazardous water supplies to assure the basic human right of clean, safe water to all throughout the nation; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the NAACP calls for the replacement of all remaining lead water pipes to become a national human rights issue to be raised in local municipalities, state houses and on the floors of Congress; and

BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED, that the NAACP recommends that communities adversely impacted by the lack of access to clean, safe water are provided with economic opportunities during the water supply remediation process through a jobs creation initiative.