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Date: 2/28/2024
AGAWAM — From now until October, Agawam will be determining if there are any lead water service lines in town and creating an inventory of those they find. The ultimate goal, said Public Works Superintendent Mario Mazza, is to eventually replace them.
“It’s not in reaction to the town’s water testing high for lead,” said Mayor Christopher Johnson at the Feb. 20 City Council meeting. “It’s in reaction to an EPA mandate requiring that we do this.”
Lead is a heavy metal that is connected to developmental, learning and behavioral problems in children, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control. Lead pipes or home fixtures can leach the material into drinking water, especially when water hasn’t been run for a while, said Mazza.
The federal Environmental Protection Agency banned lead water service lines in 1986. In 2021, according to the Massachusetts Clean Water Trust website, the agency began requiring public water providers to create an inventory of all its service lines by Oct. 16, 2024, and to make the information publicly available.
Johnson said that Agawam received a grant to pay for the process. While he did not specify the grant, the Clean Water Trust website shows Agawam receiving $540,000 for an “LSL [Lead Service Line] Inventory & Planning Project.” Nearby towns and cities, like Wilbraham and Chicopee, have recently received grants from the state organization for their service line inventory projects.
Mazza said Agawam is investigating the service lines and will alert customers if they are made of lead. If the town doesn’t know if there are lead pipes in an area, workers will conduct an “inventory investigation,” he said. If the town has incomplete records, he said, then the pipes will need to be inspected.
Inspections can be done by residents or homeowners themselves, or they can schedule a free inspection through the inspection company Hydro Utilities, with whom the town is working. The town will send out a mailer to residents in properties built before 1990 with information on how they can do inspections themselves. Anything built after 1990, or any pipes larger than 2 inches, will not need to be inspected.
Johnson said the town expects to find clusters of lead, especially in older neighborhoods. The presence of a lead service line does not equal contaminated water, Mazza said. Nonetheless, as a precaution, the EPA suggests using cold water only for drinking or cooking, as lead leaches more easily into hot water.
“When it feels cold, you’re probably in good shape,” Mazza said.
In rare instances, a newer house could have been built with copper lines running from it to the curb stop, a shut-off valve near the property line, but lead lines running from the curb stop to the water main. Johnson said the inventory would not pick up on these cases. Mazza said if lead existed in that portion, the town would have already replaced it.
In the future, the town will look for grants to cover lead testing and replacement of the pipes, which Mazza said is their goal. Money for pipe replacements may also be set aside in the next year’s budget.