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Massachusetts making inventory of water service lines to identify those made of lead

A glass of tap water.
Nancy Eve Cohen
/
NEPM
A glass of tap water.

Public water systems that provide drinking water in western Massachusetts are working on inventories to identify pipes that contain lead. The inventory is required by the revised lead and copper rule set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Water departments are conducting the inventory in a number of ways — by reviewing and digitizing paper records, surveying the service lines and sometimes asking property owners to assist.

Jaimye Bartak, communications manager with the Springfield Water and Sewer Commission, said the commission is in the final stages of wrapping up its inventory. It serves 175,000 people in Springfield and Ludlow.

"We have offered, to this last portion of customers, the option to send in a picture of the service lines, because most of those pictures can provide enough information to identify whether they're noncopper or a brass material. But if we can't identify it from the picture we'll schedule a physical inspection," she said.

The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection has developed a web-based app for residents who want to submit photographs.

Bartak said lead pipes look dull grey or white from oxidization. She said the Springfield Commission has already documented and removed any lead lines that it identified years ago.

Amy Rusiecki, assistant superintendent of Amherst Public Works, said the town has been chipping away at the inventory for several years. She said the process involves identifying properties where there is lead, where this isn't any — and where they don't have enough information.

"This process is really kind of making us put every single service line in one of those three buckets so that we know where we can focus our work," Rusiecki said.

She said one of the challenges in Amherst is the town's water system doesn't own the lines that bring water into homes and businesses. So, in some cases, the town doesn't have all the information it needs. In some other communities, the water system is responsible for the service line all the way to the basement.

Although the federal deadline for completing the inventory is Oct. 16, 2024, the state Department of Environmental Protection is asking water departments to submit a draft by April 1st.

According to the EPA, even low levels of lead in the blood of children can cause serious health effects.

Nancy Eve Cohen is a former NEPM senior reporter whose investigative reporting has been recognized with an Edward R. Murrow Regional Award for Hard News, along with awards for features and spot news from the Public Media Journalists Association (PMJA), American Women in Radio & Television and the Society of Professional Journalists.

She has reported on repatriation to Native nations, criminal justice for survivors of child sexual abuse, linguistic and digital barriers to employment, fatal police shootings and efforts to address climate change and protect the environment. She has done extensive reporting on the EPA's Superfund cleanup of the Housatonic River.

Previously, she served as an editor at NPR in Washington D.C., as well as the managing editor of the Northeast Environmental Hub, a collaboration of public radio stations in New York and New England.

Before working in radio, she produced environmental public television documentaries. As part of a camera crew, she also recorded sound for network television news with assignments in Russia, Guatemala, Mexico, Cuba and in Sarajevo during the war in Bosnia.

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SOMOS CONNECTICUT es una iniciativa de Connecticut Public, la emisora local de NPR y PBS del estado, que busca elevar nuestras historias latinas y expandir programación que alza y informa nuestras comunidades latinas locales. Visita CTPublic.org/latino para más reportajes y recursos. Para noticias, suscríbase a nuestro boletín informativo en ctpublic.org/newsletters.

The independent journalism and non-commercial programming you rely on every day is in danger.

If you’re reading this, you believe in trusted journalism and in learning without paywalls. You value access to educational content kids love and enriching cultural programming.

Now all of that is at risk.

Federal funding for public media is under threat and if it goes, the impact to our communities will be devastating.

Together, we can defend it. It’s time to protect what matters.

Your voice has protected public media before. Now, it’s needed again. Learn how you can protect the news and programming you depend on.

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