The Onondaga County Water Authority is marking the occasion of “Imagine a Day Without Water” by urging customers to check their pipes for lead. It’s part of OCWA’s federally-mandated effort to complete an inventory of the materials used to build water lines in its five-county service area by next October. Executive Director Jeff Brown says they’re seeking more participation.
“We would love the response rate to be a little higher. [It's] roughly about 18 to 20 percent right now," Brown said. "So that's why we're here really trying to get out in front of this, encouraging our customers to do this so we can get those numbers up higher.”
Brown says they’ve identified roughly two-thirds of service lines through other means, so they’re counting on customers to fill the gap. But how do customers check their pipes? OCWA’s Water Systems Construction Engineer Tavia Gilbert says first, find where the water service comes into your home. Then, she says, use a magnet to check the pipe before the meter.
“If the magnet does not stick, then we carefully you scratch the pipe with a tool like a key or a coin or a screwdriver," Gilbert said. "If the scraped area looks shiny and silver and flakes easily, your pipe is likely made of lead. Lead is quite often soft and malleable, and a magnet will not stick.”
Customers are then asked to submit their results to OCWA’s website. Chief Engineer Andrew Weiss says if your pipe is made of lead, there’s no cause for alarm, just concern.
“The lead has the potential of corroding and getting into the water, and so there's some best practices involved with making sure you keep you and your family safe and we'll help you through what those practices are. We'll also recommend that you consider replacing a lead service.”
More information, including the steps to identify and submit your service line material, can be found here.
