More sobering is the fact that there probably will never be enough tax money to pay for new pipes anyway: https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme/

Of course the NYT would find a way to make a disaster caused by bad public governance all about evil “deep-pocketed” companies. The American Society of Civil Engineers rates our water infrastructure a “D.” That’s due to chronic underfunding, which in turn is caused by municipal governments setting water and sewer rates far too low to maintain and improve the existing infrastructure. Water infrastructure is a case study in how poor political discipline can result in disastrous utility regulation, with disasterous results.

While we're at it, can we put some extra fiber optic cables in the ground, and this time let the government own all of it?

There are limits to growth. The infrastructure bubble is cracking.

No one was there to think through the long term investment in infrastructure.

The prices have skyrocketed due to regulation and now the government can't pay for all that regulated work.

Similar thing will happen in EU. Pipes are failing all across the western world.

If a local government wants to do this responsibly this time around, they should require the contractor to put up an escrow to cover any issues for 30 years. These are long term projects, and this will force the cut and run type companies to look elsewhere for work. The contract may then share the risk by requiring the pipe suppliers to also chip in and be on the hook.

It's interesting but not surprising that this competition exists. I'm not sure the concern about what leaches from the plastic pipe is legitimate, since it seems like a lot of ductile iron (which replaced cast iron) is also plastic lined though with a different plastic. Iron may have a structural strength advantage, but how important is that most of the time? Finally, plastic pipe may have the advantage in some locations due to the nature of the soil - there are some places where the soil is more likely to cause corrosion in the iron, and for those it seems reasonable to use plastic rather than simply coating the iron in it.

Overall I think the big advantage is going to come from actually getting the aged pipes replace more than from the choice of which new material to use.

The two NSF logos, National Sanitation Foundation ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSF_International ) and National Science Foundation, sure look similar.

Many of these stories are ginned up a bit, as they are PR for civil engineer societies.

My wife worked for a water utility in an old city. Outside her bosses office was a lined wooden pipe that had been in place since 1680 or so, and was removed during a construction project.

Unless the pipes are riveted, they have a surprisingly long service life, and techniques exist to spot at risk pipes and even make some repairs without digging.