City of Lebanon Authority reports inventory of service line pipe material required by EPA

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The City of Lebanon Authority (COLA) reported the results of its inventory of service line pipe material Monday, noting that while the majority or 88.4 percent are copper, there are also 400 lead lines that need to be replaced.

An additional 1,800 of the authority’s more than 21,000 services lines are of unknown material, COLA executive director Jon Beers told the board. Most of these are likely located in Lebanon city, he added.

He estimated the cost to replace service lines could range between $2 million and $15 million, depending on how the service lines connect to structures.

“We got rid of lead in gasoline and in paint (years ago),” Beers said. “It’s unclear why EPA and the federal government haven’t pushed this before.”

EPA had set Oct. 16 as the deadline for public water systems across the U.S. to identify lead service lines. Lead pipes have been known to leach lead particles into drinking water.

Lead-contaminated drinking water is particularly harmful to children and can lead to learning disabilities, hearing problems and stunted growth. Pregnant women also are at risk from lead in drinking water as are other adults. The effects of lead poisoning are not reversible.

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The water crisis in Flint, Michigan, involved lead-contaminated drinking water. In what has been cited as a cost-cutting measure, Flint officials switched the city’s water supply from one source to the Flint River, which was known to be “aggressive” or highly corrosive particularly to lead pipes. No corrosion control treatments were added so lead leached into Flint’s drinking water.

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“Only ‘aggressive water’ leaches out the lead, iron, or copper from a pipe,” Beers wrote in an email. “Lebanon does not have aggressive water because the authority keeps the water pH and alkalinity as high as it can to avoid aggressive water.”

In addition, COLA uses hydrated lime to keep the water stable and coat the pipes so lead will not precipitate, he said.

“We don’t have water quality issues related to lead showing up in our testing,” Beers said.

EPA’s Lead and Copper Rule sets a 10-year deadline for water systems to replace lead pipes. Financing will be available through grants to help underwrite the cost of removal and replacement for areas identified as low income.

For decades, lead was the material of choice for water systems and residential plumbing because its flexibility meant it was less likely to crack and break. It was not until the 1960s that copper became widely used for service lines. Copper is still used today along with polyethylene plastic pipe, Beers said in an email.

Thanks to water maintenance employees with foresight, COLA was fortunate to have handwritten notecards from the 1950s on about its service line pipe material. Whenever a new service line was installed, notes were made about where the service line was located in relation to the building, when it was installed and what type of pipe was used, Beers said.

About 15 years ago, COLA staff used GIS to map service lines and created a database with that information, he added.

Next up for COLA is to inform by mail those customers with lead service lines and those with service lines of unknown material, Beers said. In an email, he cautioned that a lead service line does not mean there is lead in the water coming into the home or property.

“We can help diagnose what kind of pipe they have in their house,” Beers told the board. “They can also take a water sample and have it tested.”

In other business, Beers reported that COLA has received a new allocation permit from DEP for water withdrawal amounts from the Siegrist Dam and the Swatara Creek. Combining the two sources, COLA can withdraw 11 million gallons a day.

COLA’s previous permit expired in 2019. Since then, COLA and DEP have been negotiating about withdrawal amounts.

The City of Lebanon Authority Board meets at 2311 Ridgeview Road, Lebanon, on the second Monday of each month at 3 p.m. The next meeting will be Monday, Nov. 11. The meetings are open to the public and do not require registration.

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Margaret Hopkins reports primarily on West Cornwall Township, the City of Lebanon Authority, and the Lebanon County Metropolitan Planning Organization. A resident of Mount Gretna Campmeeting, she is interested in the area’s history and its cultural and economic roots.As a former print journalist,... More by Margaret Hopkins