Following its October online inventory of all water service lines, Gainesville Regional Utilities (GRU) sent around 40,000 mailers to water customers to comply with new federal regulations concerning tracking down lead pipes in utilities across the nation.
The mailers arrived in the past few days at homes and businesses that GRU listed as “unknown” in its online inventory, a comprehensive map of water lines and their materials. The mailers—required by federal law and including prescribed language about lead exposure—have caused a rush of feedback to GRU.
Jennifer McElroy, supervising engineer and utility designer for GRU, said the utility team responsible for the project has more than 160 emails plus phone calls and emails sent to other divisions that are being forwarded to the team.
“A lot of the more technical questions we’re having our engineering team answer,” McElroy said in an interview. “So it does give us a little bit of a backlog, but it’s important to me that we can provide some knowledge of the rule for the customers.”
She said GRU has found no lead service lines on the utility side of the water network. However, the new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) policies require utilities across the country to also identify the pipe materials on the customer side of the water network.
She said the required information included in the mailers can sound concerning.
“It’s hard. I mean there are parts of it that just sound a little bit scary, and there’s not a whole lot we can do to change that until we have all the information at our fingertips,” McElroy said.
The online inventory of water service lines was phase 1 of the EPA program. GRU finished before the Oct. 16 deadline, and now the utility has started phase 2, reviewing all the lines listed as “unknown” and verifying that the materials used are not lead.
McElroy said she doesn’t expect to find any lead pipe on the customer side either, but GRU still needs to check. The EPA also requires notifying every customer whose water lines are listed as unknown. This requirement is what caused GRU to send the mailers.
GRU installs all water service lines operated by the utility, McElroy explains. Starting at the Murphree Water Treatment Plant, large service lines run down streets and roads throughout Gainesville. Then, smaller water lines run from the main service lines to the water meter installed by each home.
GRU owns and maintains the water meter and all the pipes leading to it. But the pipes leading from the meter to the home or business are the responsibility of the property owner.
Since the utility didn’t install the customer’s water lines, from the meter to the home, GRU doesn’t know what materials were used. McElroy said the majority of homes are listed as “unknown” because of this and received a mailer.
The exception is homes built after 1989. The ban on lead happened in the 1980s, and McElroy said any development after the 80s won’t have lead service lines.
She said GRU listed all new developments as “not lead” as allowed by the EPA.
GRU has hired a consultant to help during phase 2, but the process of verifying all the water lines for tens of thousands of customers will take years. The utility also has time, though. McElroy said the EPA deadline to finish phase 2 is expected to be 10 years after this December.
GRU plans to finish well before the deadline, she said, but it’ll still take time. Mailers will be sent to customers every year if their water pipes are still listed as unknown.
McElroy said GRU wants to use customers’ information to speed up the process. If a homeowner has had plumbing work done or knows that material their water line is made from, they can email GRU and give them the information.
The email to use would be servicelineinventory@gru.com.
However, McElroy said the utility doesn’t want customers taking shovels and trying to dig up their water lines—potentially hitting other utilities in the right-of-way. She said GRU will work through the entire service territory and provide the information to customers.
For homeowners worried about their water lines, she said they can certainly hire a licensed plumber to find out. But paying for such service isn’t required or needed.
McElroy said lead has never been widely used in Gainesville, and it would only be in much older development.
Further north, where lead pipes were widely used, she said utilities will have a lot of work ahead to identify and then begin replacing lead pipes.
“That is not the case for our service area, thankfully,” McElroy said. “So, I hate that we have to make a big deal out of it, but the rule is good, and it’s important to take this inventory seriously and to make sure that we are effectively identifying all the service lines just in case there is lead in the system.”
Customers can view the online water service inventory map here. GRU also has more information on the new EPA requirements at its website.
