EPA presses states to do more on lead

• Lead rule with EPA has shortcomings, Kentucky official says.
• Indiana American Water starts to compile list of lead service lines.
• Louisville Water Co. expects to remove all lead service lines by 2025.

All water utilities in Kentucky and Southern Indiana – including Louisville Water Co. and Indiana American Water – comply with a federal lead drinking water rule, a USA TODAY NETWORK investigation has found.

Still, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is calling on all states to do more to make sure their residents know which communities have lead problems and where lead service lines remain, amid a growing refrain that the EPA rules aren't protective enough.

"The rule has a lot of shortcomings," said Peter Goodmann, director of the Kentucky Division of Water.

The USA TODAY NETWORK investigation prompted by a public health crisis in Flint, Mich., found that nationally, some 2,000 different U.S. drinking water systems had tap tests above the EPA’s “action level” limit of 15 parts per billion, including hundreds that have exceeded the limit two or more times.

Neither Kentucky nor Indiana have a central database of lead service lines in public water systems that could be used to track these potential sources of lead poisoning in drinking water.

Beyond Flint: Excessive lead levels found in almost 2,000 water systems across all 50 states

The Louisville Water Co. does keep those records as part of a program to eliminate them by 2025.

But Indiana American Water’s Southern Indiana District – which has more than 33,000 customer connections in Clark and Floyd counties and serves most of the residents of New Albany, Jeffersonville and Clarksville – does not have such a centralized database of its lead service lines.

"It's something we are working on right now," said Joe Loughmiller, spokesman for Indiana American Water.

He said the company also does not have a formal program to replace lead service lines but does so when it replaces older water mains.

"All of our water systems across the state are consistently below the lead and copper action levels," and as a result, they are allowed by the EPA to be on a reduced monitoring schedule – every three years, he said.

Three Kentucky drinking water systems have failed to comply with federal lead standards in recent years, but all have been brought back into compliance, according to the Kentucky Division of Water.

Hustonville Water Works, Stanford Water Works and Bluegrass Station were notified of violations in 2012 or 2013, according to state water division.

Hustonville and Stanford are in Lincoln County in Southcentral Kentucky, and Bluegrass Station is a distribution facility in Fayette County. Hustonville and Bluegrass Station took additional tests, which showed compliance in 2013, said Goodmann. Stanford worked with a chemical company on its corrosion control treatment and returned to compliance in 2014, officials said.

Health experts say there is no completely safe level of lead in drinking water, and some caution that the federal action level is too high. The Virginia Tech experts working on the Flint situation have said anything over 5 parts per billion suggests a serious lead problem.

The great majority of sampling by Kentucky water utilities is below 5 parts per billion, according to the state's analysis.

"That (level is) technologically achievable," Goodmann said.

The chemistry of Kentucky's source water tends to be less corrosive, which means it's less likely to cause lead from aging lead pipes or fixtures to get into drinking water, Goodmann said. He also credited the operators of Kentucky's drinking water systems for doing their jobs well.

A single elevated test isn't enough to cause compliance problems, Goodmann said.

The EPA says that lead can be found in the air, soil, water and inside homes. Exposure can come from past use of leaded gasoline, some types of industrial facilities, and past use of lead-based paint in homes. In water systems, it can leach out of older pipes and solders.

It's particularly dangerous to children because their growing bodies absorb more lead than adults do and their brains and nervous systems are more sensitive to the damaging effects of lead, the EPA says.

Water company works to keep the lead out

The Louisville Water Co. has 281,000 service lines in its distribution system.

"We have 7,700 remaining lead service lines," said Kelley Dearing Smith, water company spokeswoman. That amounts to 2.8 percent.

"Our goal is to eliminate the remaining lead lines by 2025," she said.

The company has had a lead team since the early 2000s and increased annual spending on its service line removal program from $1.4 million in 2014 to $2.3 million in the company's 2016 budget.

Kentucky officials said the events leading to the problems in Flint have shown the federal rule may not be adequate.

The lead rule requires water systems to test tap water at a varying number of homes for lead but only requires action if more than 10 percent of those show levels over 15 parts per billion.

"EPA is going to be under tremendous pressure to revisit it," Goodmann said.

Reach reporter James Bruggers at (502) 582-4645 and at jbruggers@courier-journal.com.

What you can do

• Your water utility is required to send you a Consumer Confidence Report once a year, showing whether it met water quality standards, including those for lead.
• Look for the report on your utility's website, or call and ask for it.
• Indiana puts a version of those reports online at http://1.usa.gov/1R0h7Ja.
• Kentucky sends people to an EPA site with incomplete data: http://1.usa.gov/1S7ORIF.
• If you have concerns about lead in your plumbing, check to see if your utility offers lead testing at the tap.
• If you have lead pipes or lead soldered joints in your home, before cooking or drinking run the cold faucet and flush the line for at least two minutes or until you feel a significantly cooler water temperature.
• In those homes, do not drink, cook or make baby formula with water from the hot water tap.