Equity as Afterthought: Pittsburgh’s Lead Service Line Replacement Program and the Limits of Technocratic ‘Community Engagement’

• In Event: 50620 - Section on Environmental Sociology Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 8: Environmental Inequalities and Harm 2

Abstract

Lead-contaminated water remains a persistent crisis in U.S. cities, disproportionately harming low-income households and communities of color. While federal initiatives such as the EPA’s Lead and Copper Rule Revision (LCRR) mandate the replacement of all lead service lines within ten years, equitable implementation of these policies hinges on how cities use their discretion to define and prioritize replacements. In Pittsburgh, PA from 2019 onwards the municipal water system, Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority (PWSA), claimed to center equity by prioritizing lead service line replacements (LSLRs) for vulnerable populations —children with elevated blood lead levels (EBLL), women of child-bearing age, low-income families, and neighborhoods with dense lead service lines. In this study, we scrutinize the water authority’s implementation process, asking: How did Pittsburgh’s LSLR program balance government mandates, community advocacy, and entrenched institutional power? Using a combination of qualitative analysis of meeting minutes from the local Citizens Lead Response Advisory Committee (CLRAC) (established in 2019) and spatio-temporal mapping of Right-to-Know data, we find that PWSA’s early implementation of LSLRs largely prioritized higher-income neighborhoods that lacked many of the features identified in PWSA’s equity guidelines. Our analysis reveals that the CLRAC did assist the water authority in making meaningful (though limited) strides towards greater equity, but that their interventions came after vulnerable neighborhoods were left unremediated much longer than their wealthier counterparts. We argue that Pittsburgh’s LSLR program is neither a failure nor a model—it is a cautionary tale revealing the paradox of participatory equity: citizen committees can nudge institutions toward justice but risk becoming “equity-washing” tools that legitimize systemic harm.

Authors

• Chie Togami, SUNY

• Abhishek Viswanathan, Chatham University