Bad state data may misdirect nearly $1 billion in federal funds to replace lead pipes

The Environmental Protection Agency is at risk of misallocating nearly $1 billion in lead pipe replacement funding to the wrong states because it didn’t verify inaccurate data provided by Texas and Florida, an agency watchdog announced.

At issue is a first-of-its-kind EPA survey that asked local officials to estimate the number of lead pipes in their state. Some states with long industrial legacies like Illinois and Michigan have far more than others. The bipartisan infrastructure law provided $15 billion to find and replace lead pipes. The survey was to ensure states with more pipes got more money.

But the EPA didn’t verify what states told them and there were glaring problems with the numbers provided by Texas and Florida, according to the inspector general. For example, a single data entry error by Houston caused the EPA to allocate nearly $120 million more to Texas than it probably should have in fiscal year 2023, the report said. When Houston told Texas officials about the mistake, the state didn’t inform the EPA, the report said.