ERLANGER, Ky. — Some customers in northern Kentucky have been receiving notices asking them to identify the water pipes in their home.
It’s part of a national mandate from the Environmental Protection Agency to protect people against potentially harmful material in their water.
Notices have gone out to about 25,000 of the Northern Kentucky Water District’s 90,000 active service customers. It’s in accordance with the EPA’s revised 2021 lead and copper rule.
Water utilities across the country are required to submit an inventory of all service line materials in their systems. The service line brings the water from the water main into a home or business.
Part of that line is owned by the customer, but part of it is owned by the water district.
“We were required to send out notification to customers if that service line material was either lead, galvanized or of an unknown material. So our big ask for our customers is if they receive one of those notifications, if it’s galvanized or lead, to verify that their service line is made of that material,” said Sara Sgantas, Communications and Public Outreach Manager for the water district.
Sgantas said a majority of the notifications sent out were for service lines the district has no records for. In those cases, the water district needs customers to report what that material is. The water district can also provide help in doing so.
For example, a scratch test on lead will leave a shiny streak.
“Lead is a toxic material that can cause immediate health effects in high doses. Or it can cause short-term effects over time,” Sgantas said. “The best way to assure you are safe from lead is to remove any of those types of sources of lead.”
As for galvanized steel, it could be downstream from a lead service line and contain lead itself. The water district adjusts the corrosivity of water to reduce the risk of lead leaching into it.
“When water leaves our treatment plants, that finished water does not contain lead,” Sgantas said. “Our recent round of testing for lead in customer homes that’s part of the required testing showed that none of our sites were above the action level.”
But that doesn’t mean a customer’s water can’t collect lead if they have the wrong pipes in their home. Lead was once commonly used by plumbers before the harmful effects became well known.
Using it in plumbing became banned in Kentucky in the 1980s.
“A lot of our homes, especially in our river cities, there’s potential for a lot of lead service lines, or that type of pipe material,” Sgantas said.
She said the water district is already receiving a lot of feedback from the notices and is taking the issue very seriously.
More information can be found on the company’s website, including where to find the pipes in one’s house, and how to identify the material and submit it.