This is an ongoing story and will be updated.
ALPINE — Some Alpine residents were alarmed recently when they received letters from the city’s water utility notifying them that their service lines — pipes leading from the main water line to their home’s meter and from the meters to the home — may be made of lead.
The notification letters are the result of a new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule that mandates water utilities inventory all service line pipes to see if they are lead or galvanized. (Galvanized pipes can be contaminated with lead that then leaches into the water.)
Annette Minjarez, an administrator at the City of Alpine Water Department, said the letters don’t necessarily mean there is actual lead in the homeowner’s water or that it’s dangerous. The letters notify residents that the city has made a determination that the residence’s pipes are in three categories: lead, galvanized or unknown. However, the content in the letters that then outlines the dangers of lead — learning and behavioral disabilities as well a wide range of significant health problems — was required, according to EPA instructions on the notifications. That content led many residents to post concerns on Facebook over lead in their water, with the same alarm being spread around the country with cities now sending out letters.
The EPA rule, administered by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), requiring an inventory showing which pipes may be lead, galvanized or unknown was to be completed by October 16. But Minjarez said for Alpine it will be an ongoing process of checking local records and physically re-checking homes to make sure that assessments are accurate. The city had assessed 38% of its lines by the deadline, Minjarez said. “We’re slowly identifying all the lines, and the people that got a letter that said ‘unknown’ will get an updated letter saying we now know what your line is,” Minjarez said. “We have already found that some of the lines that were pre-identified as lead are not lead, or they’re galvanized or even PVC.”
The residences in question will be those built before Congress made additions to the Safe Drinking Water Act in 1986 that banned lead pipes for service lines or in newly-constructed homes. The new rule is intended to prompt the replacement of lead and galvanized service lines and to try and help pay for that process with federal and state grants, according to EPA documents. Another goal is to educate homeowners on whether the pipes inside their house are lead or galvanized and urge replacement when possible.
“Our main goal is by October of next year to have a [service line] replacement plan,” Minjarez said. “We’ll have to replace so many of the lead and galvanized lines, and we’ll have to do so many a year depending on the size and the number. It’s going to take some time and quite a bit of money. There are grants available that we’re in the process of applying for and have applied for. We’re taking some big strides in trying to get in compliance with the TCEQ.”
Public water utilities are required by the TCEQ to periodically test to ensure the supplies — often from multiple sources — don’t contain lead, but poisoning is still possible through the service line pipes and indoor plumbing. The notification letter sent by the City of Alpine includes EPA language on how to minimize risks, such as not using hot water for drinking or cooking, since lead leaches more with hot water, and using filters designed specifically to remove lead.
Getting rid of lead and galvanized pipes has been a goal for the EPA since the 1990s, but the effort came to a head with the Flint Michigan water crises in 2014 that saw hundreds of residents suffering from lead ingestion. On October 8, President Biden announced the finalization of EPA rules with $2.6 billion in federal funding ($15 billion over five years) and a goal to eliminate lead pipes within 10 years.
Other area public water supplies
Marfa Interim City Manager Kelly Perez said Thursday morning she needed to consult with her utilities staff to see what was planned. Presidio City Manager Pablo Rodriguez said he also needed time to look into the issue. Representatives from the Fort Davis Water Supply Corporation could not immediately be reached for comment. No notification letters have been sent by these entities. The Study Butte Water Supply Corporation completed its survey of about 300 residences,and since they didn’t begin installing pipe until 2000 to 2005, no lead or galvanized service lines were found, according to Alisa De La Cruz, the office manager. De La Cruz said all required reporting was submitted to the EPA on September 12.
The EPA rule for inventories of service lines also applies to community water supplies (CSWs) — water systems serving 25 or more homes for at least 60 days a year — meaning tiny corporations like Redford and Candelaria. However, since those systems were built in the early 1990s, after the ban on lead and the non-use of galvanized pipes, it’s unlikely that they will have problematic service lines.
