OHIO, USA —
Home and business owners throughout the area may have received a letter about replacements for lead water service lines.
This is all part of a mandate from the Environmental Protection Agency for municipalities to identify where lead service lines are and prepare to remove them.
This is a nationwide mandate and each municipality has to first identify homes and businesses that may have lead service lines, which are mainly buildings built prior to 1989.
"What we do is we look through our records and if we have a record that tells us clearly what that material is, whether it's lead or copper or what have you, we put that in one pile," Matt Choma, the director and commissioner of public utilities for the city of Perrysburg said.
The other group of letters read "lead status unknown," but according to Choma this just means the municipality does not have a record of what material is currently in place.
Choma said this notice does not mean that the water is unsafe. He said the city does regular tests for lead levels and there have not been any issues.
Each municipality was required to inform residents of what information it had on record by mid-November.
The city of Toledo sent close to 50,000 letters, according to its website. The city of Perrysburg sent 6,100 hundred letters, according to Choma.
Each municipality will now spend the next three years figuring out those unknown service lines.
"By October of [2027], all your unknowns are supposed to be known," Choma said. "Whether it's lead, copper, plastic or galvanized [steel] and that inventory is then submitted to the EPA."
Choma said the identification process will be a collaboration between the city and residents. The city will handle the public side.
"What we will end up doing is doing hydro-excavation done on either side of the shut-off valve and that's usually at the right away line," Choma said.
On the private side, community members will be asked to do a visual inspection on whether the service lines are copper, lead or galvanized steel and report it to the city.
This is just the setup for the goal of replacing all lead service lines by 2037.
As for the funding to replace lines, Choma said the city is still working to find financial assistance. Choma said if any resident has questions, they can contact the Department of Public Utilities to find out more.