In response to the ongoing toxicity crisis gripping the town of Flint, Michigan, 2020 Democratic presidential contender Julián Castro has unveiled a nationwide lead abatement plan. 

Last week, Castro, former Housing and Urban Development secretary under President Barack Obama, became the first presidential candidate to visit the ailing town, where a slow-motion environmental disaster has been playing out since 2014. 

(For a thorough breakdown of the Flint water crisis, see this informational story from CNN.)

Castro proposes to establish a presidential task force on lead “charged with eliminating lead poisoning as a major public health threat” while asking Congress to allocate $5 billion per year for a decade to replace lead pipes around the country. The funding would also go toward abating lead contamination in household paint and in soil "in areas of highest need." In addition, the plan would allocate $100 million per year toward lead poising prevention efforts. Castro told BuzzFeed News, “Today I’m putting forward a plan to combat lead exposure across the country, and to ensure that no families experience what those in Flint have had to endure." 

Nationwide, lead exposure is a largely-undiscussed public health threat that impacts untold millions. As many as 1.2 million children might be suffering from lead poisoning in the United States, for example, according to recent studies. 

Because lead was used as a necessary ingredient of household and industrial paint for decades, older housing stock across the country is a potentially significant source of lead contamination. The United States Congress did not ban lead in household paint until 1971, regulations that did not take effect until 1978. In 2008, the Environmental Protection Agency issued lead abatement regulations targeting renovations of residential housing and child-occupied buildings. And still, as the crisis in Flint lays bare, little federal and state oversight goes into monitoring or abating lead contamination in America's building stock. 

Lead is also found in the pipes that make up significant proportion of the nation's water delivery systems, especially in Midwestern and East Coast cities. It is estimated that 1.6 million miles of lead pipes are installed nationwide in nearly 3,000 towns and cities, for example. The cost of removing and replacing these pipes could be as high as $1 trillion.

Leaded gasoline, on the other hand, was not regulated out of existence until 1995. All of which says nothing about the nation's underreported industrial lead poising problems. 

Castro, it appears, has his work cut out for him. So far, however, Castro is the only presidential candidate to take on lead poisoning.