The city of Wichita is taking an inventory of lead water service lines throughout its system to comply with new federal rules.
Water utilities across the country must take stock of how many lead pipes they have – and where they are – by October. The push is in tandem with a more stringent set of rules proposed by President Joe Biden, which include eliminating all lead service lines within 10 years.
But those rules have drawn backlash from Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, who joined a coalition of other states arguing that the cost to replace all lead pipes is too high and will ultimately fall on property owners. Estimates of the expense range from $28 billion to $60 billion, while the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law only set aside $15 billion for lead service line replacement.
Exposure to lead can seriously harm children’s growth and development, and Congress banned new lead pipes in 1986. But cities weren’t required to replace existing ones.
Now, water suppliers must at least locate existing lead service lines: on both the public side and the private side.
Wichita has been replacing public lead service lines since the 1990s, said Laura Quick, the Utilities Optimization program manager with the city’s Public Works department. She added that the city has removed more than 10,000 lead pipes since then.
But the private side – the pipes that carry water from the mains under the street into homes – is a different story. Quick said there’s a lot of private water lines that the city doesn’t know much about.
“We have 50,000, over 50,000, unknowns still,” Quick said in February. “We have just started an effort of predictive modeling. So it's using machine learning to try to fill in some of the gaps based on the ones that we do know.”
Quick said the effort is time and staff-intensive. In December, the city contracted an engineering firm to help Wichita stay in compliance with the new rules. The contract is not to exceed $475,000.
Here are some common questions about the lead pipe program.
How do I figure out if my private service line is made of lead?
Homes built before 1986 are more likely to have lead, according to the EPA.
You can investigate the type of service line you have in your own home using a magnet and a set of keys. The EPA has a guide on how to do so here. A licensed plumber could also inspect your service line to identify the material.
Do I need to alert the city if I have a lead service line?
You aren’t under any obligation to, but telling the city can improve its algorithm and help them find other lead service lines.
“The more data that we have, the better,” said Andrew Van Tassell, a special projects coordinator with Wichita’s Public Works department.
Van Tassell said that homeowners or renters who alert the city to their lead service line could be eligible for free water testing.
Homeowners and renters can fill out this survey to alert the city about their service line’s material.
If my private service line is lead, am I required to replace it?
The city of Wichita says no.
“If you do have a lead service line, you're under no obligation to change that,” Van Tassell said. “But it is highly recommended from the EPA to fix that situation as soon as possible just because of the health risks.”
Quick said that the goal of 100% lead pipe replacement is still aspirational.
But Kobach’s coalition argues the rule Biden is proposing could be used to force private landowners to replace private lead pipes.
If I want to replace my private lead service line, who pays?
Van Tassell said there may be publicly-available funds to pay for replacement in the future. But as of right now, if property owners want to replace their lead service lines, they have to pay for it themselves.
“Anything that's on private property is going to be the homeowner’s responsibility, at this point,” Quick said.
Kobach also laid out concerns about lead pipe replacement increasing water utility prices for customers.
“Americans are already burdened by rising energy and utility costs and crushing inflation, and this proposal just adds insult to injury,” he said in a press release.
Is there lead in the city’s water now?
The city regularly tests its water for lead, Quick said. Between 2019 and 2021, none of the water tested above the federal “action level” of lead that triggers water treatment.
“We're making compliant water at this point,” Quick said.
