In compliance with a federal rule, St. Louis homeowners with suspected lead pipes received letters in November from the City’s Water Division asking them to check their water service line. St. Louis City is applying for funding to replace lead service lines and needs a cost estimate. At street addresses with lead pipes, it is unlikely that lead is entering tap water due to corrosion control treatment from water treatment plants, but it is still safer to replace them. The link in the letter has instructions for identifying service line material.

The addresses that received one of these letters were determined from historical city records of homes that were originally built with lead pipes, and homes where the water service line material is unknown. Lead is no longer used as a water line material so newer homes did not receive a letter. The current water service line inventory for St. Louis has 9,000 homes recorded as lead status, 46,000 as non-lead status, and 58,000 as unknown.

Water service lines connect a house to the main water supply line, so the line is on the landowner’s property and is owned by the property owner. St. Louis applied for federal funding through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to provide financial assistance to replace these pipes.

The letter sent to homeowners contains both a link with a fact sheet and how-to-video on how to identify the material of a property’s service line. Steps include looking at the color of the pipe, a scratch test with a coin, and seeing if a fridge magnet sticks to it. Lead pipes will be gray or dull in color, shiny after a scratch test, and a strong magnet will not stick to them.

The St. Louis water department uses a corrosion control treatment in its water treatment plant to prevent lead from leaching into water. This means that even in homes with lead service lines, it is unlikely lead is entering the water. While this process lowers the risk of exposure, replacing the lead pipes completely is still the safer option.

Lead is especially harmful to children and pregnant people. More information on sources of lead exposure and ways to prevent them can be found at https://www.epa.gov/lead/learn-about-lead. 

The 2024 Bipartisan Infrastructure Act requires that all lead pipes be replaced in the next ten years, but a specific start date for the replacement of water service lines is still unknown.