Lead in old water line and housing is a looming health issue. Everyone wants it removed, but who will pay?
The mailed notifications to Providence Water customers have arrived consistently over the past several years, alerting them of the presence of elevated levels of lead in the public drinking water.
Soon after the notices go out, Crystal Spring Water Co. in Middletown gets a spate of phone calls from people asking about the range of service, costs and delivery frequency. Media coverage is the typical trigger, says company President Ian Scott.
“Most of them, they just don’t trust the water that’s coming out of the tap,” Scott said.
For nine of the past 10 years, twice-annual testing of the Providence Water system – which has direct distribution links to Providence, North Providence, Johnston, Cranston and parts of Smithfield and Lincoln – has had results that exceed the federal “action level” for lead at least once a year. The high points came in the second halves of 2009 and 2013, when testing revealed more than 10 percent of the Providence Water samples came in with lead readings of 30 parts per billion, twice the limit requiring an immediate response by the water company, under federal regulations.
Because of the health threat associated with ingesting lead, the Environmental Protection Agency requires water systems where 10 percent of tap samples exceed 15 parts per billion to take actions that include notifying consumers and making remedial efforts to reduce lead levels.
Due to the local test results, Providence Water must invest at least $15.8 million in main rehabilitation in fiscal 2017, to be followed by $17 million in both fiscal 2018 and fiscal 2019.
The utility already has spent more than $45 million over the past decade replacing lead service lines. It also plans this year to greatly expand a pilot program that will encourage homeowners to replace the leaded service lines leading from the publicly owned infrastructure to their homes.
If authorized, homeowners could access no-interest loans provided through the utility, repaying the cost of replacing their private-service lines through increased fees on their water bills.
Despite the potential health risks associated with the ongoing challenges, however, many consumers remain unaware of waterborne lead in the public supply, insists Laura Brion, executive director of Childhood Lead Action Project. The Providence-based nonprofit advocates for elimination of lead hazards.
Through advocacy efforts, the General Assembly enacted laws that require lead-safety standards in rental housing and in workplaces, she said. This rightly puts the onus on sources of lead that are the leading cause of lead exposure and poisoning, she said, including household paint, lead-paint dust and contaminated soils.
But none of those regulations relate to lead in drinking water.
“It doesn’t address water at all, which is a major weakness,” she said.
WHERE’S IT COMING FROM?
What’s coming out of the tap in the Providence Water service area starts out in good shape.
The water source, a 37 billion-gallon reservoir in Scituate, has no lead in it, according to Ricky Caruolo, the general manager of the 103-year-old drinking-water utility.
The network of water mains that form the backbone of the distribution system have no lead. They are made of cast iron, he said. The utility has maintained the required program of cleaning and lining, or replacing the mains, he said.
One source of lead in the system is the service lines, the lateral pipes that carry water from the main in the streets to the individual houses or businesses. Up until the late 1930s, lead was the material most often used for these pipes, according to Providence Water.
Over time, corrosion in the pipes has leached lead into public water, according to the testing. It’s odorless, tasteless and invisible. But ingesting it leads to documented health hazards, particularly in children and pregnant women.
How many consumers are potentially affected? An estimated 25,000 residential, commercial and industrial accounts in the system service area have lead service lines, according to Caruolo. Whether the lead readings at the water taps originate in the lead-service lines – public or private – or in the aging fixtures of the home isn’t known.
The required tests, which involve samples of first draws of water at the tap, do not indicate where the lead originates.
Under a 2012 consent decree with the R.I. Department of Health, the utility was required to create a panel of expert advisers, who could recommend treatment adjustments for its water supply to lower the lead levels.
Caruolo, who as general manager engaged the panel of experts, said the utility is committed to fixing the problems it has control over.
“It’s a priority for us to … invest in this situation and try to remove lead from our system,” he said.
By the 1940s, lead pipes were no longer being laid beneath subdivisions and neighborhoods in Providence and surrounding areas, according to Gregg Giasson, the deputy general manager of Providence Water, and its executive engineer.
But by then, much of the water infrastructure already had been installed in the densely developed areas of cities such as Providence, Cranston and North Providence.
A current map of the Providence Water coverage area shows a vast overlay of streets interlaced with lead piping in the most populated cities. The infrastructure task to replace each service line is monumental in scope.
Of the estimated 75,000 customers directly serviced by Providence Water, including residential, commercial and industrial consumers, about one-third have lead service lines, according to Caruolo.
Altogether, nearly 600,000 people in Rhode Island receive their water from Providence Water, about 60 percent of the state’s population.
Its wholesale customers include the Kent County, Bristol County, Smithfield and Greenville water systems. Although these entities receive water from Providence Water, each has its own distribution system.
Over the past 10 years, Providence Water has spent more than $45 million replacing the lead service lines on public property – its responsibility.
But the service lines that run through private land or property, owned by homeowners and other private owners, are not controlled by the public water utility. Replacing those connections made of lead is the responsibility of private owners.
“Our responsibility [ends] at the curb stop,” Caruolo said.
The utility has spent $15 million to $17 million a year over the past decade in rehabilitating its water mains, and then replacing the lead lines as homeowners do their side. The cost averages out to $1 million a mile, according to Caruolo.
[caption id="attachment_189539" align="aligncenter" width="640"]
MAIN REPLACEMENT: Contractors for Providence Water complete a water-main replacement in the Fox Point area of Providence. The utility has spent more than $45 million over the past decade updating its water-main and service-line infrastructure to replace old water lines that contain lead. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO[/caption]
LEAD EFFECTS
Lead is an environmental contaminant, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Its adverse effects in adults include peripheral neuropathy, renal failure and hypertension.
Lead exposure in pregnant and breastfeeding women can affect fertility, hypertension and brain development in infants. And after exposure, the damage can be long-lasting. Because lead is stored in bones, which release calcium in pregnancy, it can be passed on to lactating women and infants after initial exposure, according to a report prepared in 2012 for the CDC by Mary Jean Brown and Stephen Margolis, of the Division of Emergency and Environmental Health Services at the National Center for Environmental Health.
No safe blood-level threshold in children has been identified, the report said.
Lead exposure nationally has dropped most dramatically since lead-based paints were banned in 1978, but many Rhode Island children annually are found to have lead poisoning.
The state has one of the nation’s oldest housing stocks. About 80 percent of Rhode Island homes were built prior to the lead-paint ban. In addition to old paint, children also encounter lead in water that comes through leaded plumbing, including the solder used to bind pipes together.
New cases of childhood lead poisoning, as well as prevalence, are tracked by the R.I. Department of Health.
Over the past decade, the incidence of lead poisoning across Rhode Island, in tests of children under age 6, has dropped dramatically, the state has reported. In 2012, the CDC lowered the blood-level threshold for what is considered lead poisoning in children to a measurement of 5 micrograms per deciliter, down from the previous 10 micrograms.
That year, Rhode Island health officials reported 1,227 new cases of children with blood lead levels of that amount. By 2016, the most recent year for which figures were available, the number of new cases reported had fallen to 834 children.
In any given year, the number of children with blood lead levels exceeding the threshold also are reported, regardless of whether they are newly identified. In 2016, that number was 1,192 children, according to figures provided by the R.I. Department of Health.
In a breakdown by community, reported in 2011, rural communities and cities had some of the highest incidence of new cases.
While Providence, Pawtucket, Central Falls and Newport all had incidence of lead poisoning exceeding 4.9 percent of children under age 6 tested in 2011, so did New Shoreham, Burrillville, East Providence, South Kingstown, Tiverton and Little Compton.
Lead exposure for young children is a concern because their bodies absorb more of the metal and their brains and neurological systems are still developing, according to Barbara Morin, principal environmental health risk-assessment toxicologist for the R.I. Department of Health.
The impact of having a blood lead level that exceeds the CDC threshold of 5 micrograms per deciliter varies by child, but “even at that level, there is a demonstrable effect on IQ, being able to learn in certain ways, on attention, on behavior, on being able to concentrate,” Morin said. “There is a whole range of things that could happen.”
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SERVICE MAP: This map of service lines in the Providence Water service area shows the completed replacements in green, the lead service lines in red and the unaffected service lines in blue. / MAP COURTESY PROVIDENCE WATER[/caption]
REPLACING PIPES
The optimal solution, replacing the lead pipes, isn’t cheap.
For the private service lines alone, Providence Water estimates the cost is $2,500 to $3,500 per household, but that figure also depends on the characteristics of each site.
To encourage more homeowners to replace their lead lines, Providence Water this year initiated a pilot program that will provide zero-interest loans for property owners who invest in a replacement. The replacement loan is to be repaid over a three-year span, with the payments added to the customer’s regular water bill.
The state’s Public Utilities Commission authorized the initial program with a total loan cap of $250,000, which conceivably could fund loans to 50 or more consumers, Caruolo said.
Through the Rhode Island Infrastructure Bank, Providence Water hopes to expand the program to a much broader pool. It anticipates approval of up to $1 million.
Since 2007, the public utility has replaced its own lead service lines as it replaces or upgrades water mains.
It also conducts what Caruolo termed surgical replacements, installing a new public-side service line once a homeowner has decided to replace their own. That is why Providence Water estimates it has about 13,000 lead service lines remaining, compared to the 25,000 private lines.
[caption id="attachment_189540" align="aligncenter" width="640"]
TAP ALTERNATIVE: Paul Cicillini, carrier for Crystal Spring Water Co., makes a delivery to the apartment of Natalie Drozhzhin in Providence. Company President Ian Scott said most people don’t trust the water “coming out of the tap,” especially after receiving notices of elevated levels of lead in the public drinking water. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO[/caption]
COST PROHIBITIVE?
Across Rhode Island, some homeowners have already taken matters into their own hands and paid for water-line replacements.
Others have found the cost prohibitive.
Paul Kopech, who lives in the Elmhurst neighborhood of Providence, looked into replacing a portion of his system last summer, only to find that the lead pipe connecting his house to the Providence Water pipe represented an engineering challenge. The length of the pipe, the topography of his lot and other conditions contributed to an estimate from a plumbing contractor of $22,000 to $24,000, he said.
Initially interested in stopping a persistent leak, Kopech abandoned the idea of the fix. He thinks Providence Water should take responsibility for the lead lines it would have originally installed. His house was built in 1942. His internal plumbing is copper.
“[They] don’t want to come in and change all of those lead pipes because it would cost a fortune, just a fortune to do it,” Kopech said. “They put the onus back on us.”
Kopech isn’t concerned about any leaded water entering the house. His family has used lead filters on all drinking and cooking water for almost 10 years.
“We don’t drink it [unfiltered],” he said.
Scott, from Crystal Spring Water Co., estimates 25 percent of his customer base is in the Greater Providence area. He said the customers generally don’t cite lead as the reason but want to know their water is free of contaminants.
They’re willing to pay each month for deliveries of drinking water.
Steve Tudino, who owns the Water Filter Co. Inc., of North Kingstown, also serves residents concerned about water quality.
He specializes in whole-house and tap-based filters and said contaminants that arrive in the water are relatively simple to screen out, with a filter on the main line heading in from the street, and then a filter at the taps used for cooking and drinking.
To only put one on is to potentially miss the source of the leaching, he said.
“You have the lead in the street. You have the lead line coming into the house from the street, which is usually the homeowner’s responsibility,” he said. “Even if we put a lead filter on the main line, as it catches the water coming into the house, there could be components in the plumbing in the house that produce more lead.
“A lot of people make the mistake of buying a lead filter for the whole house, and they still end up with lead because it’s coming from somewhere else in the house,” said Tudino.
Providence Water is hopeful the Rhode Island Infrastructure Bank will approve the proposed expanded loan program this year for at-cost pipe replacements on private properties, connecting to single-family homes initially.
“We have had significant conversations with them. We think of them as a partner,” Caruolo said.
June Swallow, chief of the R.I. Department of Health Office of Drinking Water Quality, the state agency that receives the test results, said the ongoing infrastructure-replacement program will help to eventually remove all the lead – the ultimate solution.
“We need to get the lead out of the distribution system,” Swallow said. “Whether we’re below 15 [ppb or not], we just need to get the lead out.”
