AUBURN — Higher than expected lead levels in some household plumbing around the city requires water district officials to conduct more testing.
Routine testing of Auburn’s household water showed a spike of 23 parts per billion in 2015 in levels of lead in some household plumbing fixtures. The acceptable level of lead in household water is 15 parts per billion or less, according to federal Environmental Protection Agency mandates.
“It’s the only rule that requires us to test for things that are entirely out of our control,” said Mary Jane Dillingham, water quality manager for the Lewiston-Auburn Water Pollution Control Authority. “We are not in control of what people do in their homes for plumbing.”
Dillingham said Auburn is required to test water quality in 30 homes every three years for lead and copper levels. Auburn’s reported lead level in 2012 was nine parts per billion.
Auburn’s copper level, which can be a sign of corrosion in household plumbing, was well below federal thresholds in 2012 and again this year.
According to EPA rules, this year’s high lead score triggers more extensive testing. The water district needs to collect one-liter samples from 60 preselected Auburn homes once between January and June 2016 and again between July 2016 and January 2017.
That accelerated testing schedule continues until the lead level drops below the 15 parts per billion threshold.
Water District Superintendent Sid Hazelton said the district is mailing a notification to all 6,800 Auburn Water District customers and advertising an EPA notification.
Dillingham said she wants to create a Web page with information about lead testing, the results and to coordinate the next round of tests.
Dillingham said lead levels can be highest in older homes with all-metal plumbing. The testing specifically looks for homes built before 1987, when the use of lead-based plumbing solder was mostly discontinued.
According to Plumbing Manufacturer International, an industry group, almost all homes built in the 1980s or earlier have copper tube plumbing connected with lead solder.
Dillingham said one woman submitted a test supply that showed a big spike in lead.
“I asked her if she’d done any work on her plumbing and she said ‘Yes! My husband put in a new faucet’,” Dillingham said. “He’d used some old solder he had kicking around, and it showed up in the test. And they had to undo everything to get their lead levels back down.”
Dillingham recommended never using old solder, using plastic pipes when possible and purchasing certified lead-free faucets and fixtures. New faucets can still contain levels of lead in the brass fittings unless they are specifically labeled as certified lead-free.
“A lot of new faucets are built lead-free because there is a market for it,” she said. “My certified lead-free faucet was a lot of money, but it had the certification.”
Lead can build up in the body over time, causing physical and mental impairment. It’s most serious in children’s developing nervous systems.
Dillingham said the water district adds a blended phosphate to the water supply that’s designed to stop lead corrosion in household plumbing.
“It’s not a coating that builds up, but it has to maintain,” she said. “It needs a flow of water through the pipe to be effective.”
Homes with metal plumbing are most at risk, she said, but that does not mean those homes have high levels of lead. Homeowners can pay to have their water tested.
Filters can help as long as they are at the tap, are designed to remove lead and are changed regularly.
She recommended people let the tap run for a few seconds before drinking water, especially in the mornings after the water supply has sat in the pipes undisturbed for several hours. Running the tap allows the lead-coating phosphate to reach the tap.
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