Worried about lead contamination in your water? There's now an online map for you to check

Yahoo

20-02-2025

PROVIDENCE – Worried that your drinking water is at risk of lead contamination? If so, there's a new online mapping tool that you can use to find out whether your home has lead service lines.
The Rhode Island Department of Health rolled out the interactive dashboard this week as part of the government effort that aims by 2033 to rid the state of lead pipes, which can corrode and contaminate drinking water with the heavy metal that lowers IQ scores in children and stunts their development.
It maps out the state's 31,513 lead lines and galvanized lines that may absorb lead, as well as the 205,889 non-lead lines and 56,756 lines of unknown material that have so far been entered into the health department's database.
The water systems with the highest number of lead service lines are, in descending order:
Providence Water
The City of Newport
The Westerly Water Department
The Pawtucket Water Supply Board.
How to check if your water service lines are lead: The map can be found at ridoh.120water-ptd.com
'Just having a lead service line does not mean that there is lead in your drinking water,' said Director of Health Dr. Jerry Larkin in a statement. 'Public water systems take many steps to keep drinking water safe from lead, including treatment that reduces corrosion and routine testing, with a focus on homes with lead service lines. However, the replacement of all lead service lines in Rhode Island is an important additional step in making Rhode Island's drinking water as healthy and safe as possible.'
The new tool allows residents to enter their address to see if their service lines are made of lead or galvanized steel or iron; a safer material, such as copper or plastic; or if the material is unknown. Information is available for both the private and public sides of the service line, which carries water from the utility-owned water main under the street.
The dashboard uses information collected by water utilities across the state that were required to inventory service lines and identify which ones are made of lead. The utilities sent out letters late last year to property owners with lines either made of lead or an unknown material. The tool is still lacking information from six small water systems whose inventories are overdue, according to the health department.
The effort to speed up the replacement of lead pipes stems from the passage two years ago of the Rhode Island Lead Poisoning Prevention Act, which put in place the 2033 target date to complete the work.
It came amid expectations that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency would enact a nationwide mandate with a similar timeline. Last October, the Biden administration issued the final rule to replace all of the up to 9 million lead pipes across the country within a decade and announced billions of dollars in new funding to help make it happen.
Water utilities have pushed back, saying they aren't being given enough time to come into compliance. The first Trump administration had taken a less stringent line on the removal of lead pipes, and, with the Republican back in office, his government has asked to pause implementation of the new rule while it evaluates whether to move in a new direction.
But while federal funding across a wide range of environmental programs has been frozen, grants awarded to Rhode Island while Biden was still in office for the lead pipe work has remained unaffected so far, according to spokespeople for the health department and the Rhode Island Infrastructure Bank, which are administering the money.
The state Lead Poisoning Prevention Act requires private side service lines be replaced at no cost to the property owner as long as funding is available. The health department estimates that for the fiscal years from 2023 to 2027, the state has $302 million that could be used toward the replacement effort.
It will take years to complete the work. In the meantime, customers that received letters about their lines can ask their water utilities for free water pitchers to filter any lead in their water.
In cases where the material used in the service line is unknown, water suppliers may need to carry out on-site inspections.
In Rhode Island, lead exposure is most closely associated with lead paint, because 80% of the homes in the state were built before 1978, when lead was banned from paint products in the United States.
But a crisis in Flint, Michigan in 2014 that drew nationwide attention showed that under certain conditions, when lead pipes corrode, they can contaminate drinking water.
Older water systems are prone to higher levels of lead pipes. Lead was commonly used in drinking water lines in the early 1900s and the practice continued more sporadically until the installation of pipes made of the metal was banned in 1986.
Public water systems are required to take steps to control potential corrosion. They must also routinely sample water from customers' taps and notify them of any abnormally high levels of lead.
Lead is a neurotoxin and there is no safe level of it, especially for young children, according to the health department. In children, it can slow learning and cause irreversible brain damage, according to the EPA. In adults, it can cause increased blood pressure, heart disease and cancer.
Because the highest concentration of lead water lines is in its service area, Providence Water has been most active in replacing them with safer materials.
The utility has spent tens of millions of dollars on the replacement program and has also changed its treatment process to make water less corrosive.
Water service lines are divided into two parts: public and private. The public portion runs from the water main buried under the street up to the boundary of a private property. The private portion continues from that boundary into a home or business. A valve separates the two portions.
For years, Providence water's focus was on the public side of the lines. But in 2017, it partnered with the infrastructure bank to offer no-interest loans to help customers with the private side of the lines.
Five years later, it started using federal funds – it has received $21 million to date with another $26.3 million in the pipeline -- to offer grants for the work to qualifying customers in areas designated as economically disadvantaged by the state. So far, it has used that money to replace 2,200 private side lines, according to a spokesman for the utility.
According to the infrastructure bank, other water utilities that have been awarded federal funds are the Clear River Electric & Water District in Burrillville ($195,000); East Providence ($100,000); Woonsocket Water ($5 million); and North Providence ($760,000).
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Does your RI drinking water come from lead pipes? This map will tell you.