Haverhill water is safe to drink, despite worrying letters sent to some resident about lead concerns.
Speaking before the City Council Tuesday night, Haverhill Public Works Director Robert E. Ward apologized for letters about possible lead in drinking water service lines. He said, “In hindsight, we probably should have got out in front of the notification and done some things differently. Lesson learned.” Mayor Melinda E. Barrett chimed in, saying state and federal agencies may have had reasons for sounding the alarm.
“This letter was formed from DEP and EPA guidelines. It was I guess meant to shock people out of complacency to do their due diligence. The city will continue to do its due diligence. The reason so many people got the letter might not be that you actually have lead in your pipes, but the inventory that’s on cards in some office in Haverhill isn’t reflected in the inventory correctly yet.”
She acknowledged the letter wasn’t rolled out as she would’ve liked and the city will work to improve in the future. She noted about 300 homes are suspected to have lead pipes. Ward explained the federal government wouldn’t grant the city an extension to verify whether lead components exist.
Ward said sampling conducted last year did not detect any lead within the water supply. “There wasn’t even enough lead in the water to detect it in the lab sample,” he said. “If people are concerned about the water being safe to drink, the water is safe to drink.”
As WHAV reported Monday, some residents expressed concern on social media about possible costs they may face, with service line connections the sole responsibility of the property owner.
The letter was intended to aid the department in conducting an inventory of city lead pipes, explaining that the department has limited information about pipes and soldering materials for property owners. Ward said the inventory is “ongoing.”
Prior to the 1940s, lead pipes were common, with their use becoming less common up until 1986 when Congress amended the Safe Drinking Water Act which prohibits the use of lead pipes in water systems. Ward emphasized that homes built after 1987 do not have lead piping.
Ward said the city has routinely removed lead from its water system over the decades, using federal Community Development Block Grant funding through the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
“It’s highly unlikely that if your house was built after the 1940s, it does not have lead,” Ward said. “Obviously we know lead causes health problems.”
He added, “We’ve been chipping away at removing lead services for decades. It goes back to the 90s when there was a lot of CDBG money, we did a lot of lead replacement back then. We’ve continued even with the CDBG monies kind of shrinking; we’ve still tried to take advantage of what we can to get the lead out.”
The Environmental Protection Agency on Oct. 8 issued a final rule which requires drinking water systems nationwide to identify and replace lead pipes within 10 years.
Ward said that though the city has a “ton” of paper and digital records, there were a lot of “unknowns” for piping materials and said the department could not seek an extension in order to identify impacted properties. Among several calls the department received, Ward said the department has retrieved records and noted that most do not have lead piping.
The notice, Ward said, does not require residents to replace their piping now, but homeowners may have their piping inspected for free.
“We have limited staff but we can certainly set up appointments with water department staff to go in and inspect it,” he said. “If the water main in your street is on the opposite side of your road and the service runs across the entire road and you have a yard where your house is 200 feet off the road and you have all the nice landscaping in the front yard or the stone wall, then it gets expensive,” he said.
However, replacing pipes could cost between $1,200 to $10,000 for property owners.