INC NEWS - Spikes in Lead Levels Raise Doubts About Water Line Work (Wash Post)

[John Schelp]

Spikes in Lead Levels Raise Doubts About Water Line
Work: Increases Followed D.C.'s Pipe Replacements
Washington Post, 23 Feb 2008

Lead in tap water rose to dangerously high levels in
hundreds of District homes after a city water agency
replaced lead service pipes to reduce health risks,
according to 2006 test results made public yesterday.

The D.C. Water and Sewer Authority launched an
aggressive plan three years ago to reduce lead
contamination by replacing all of the city's 35,000
lead service pipes after unprecedented, hazardous
levels of lead were found in city water in 2004. But
the new findings raise concerns that the $93 million
effort may have at times aggravated the problem for
some residents.

The WASA test results suggest that as many as 9,000
District households where lines were partially
replaced in the past three years could have been
exposed temporarily to tap water with elevated levels
of lead, according to an analysis by Marc Edwards, a
Virginia Tech professor of civil and environmental
engineering and a 2007 MacArthur Fellow. He obtained
the WASA test results through a freedom of information
request.

The spike is blamed on disrupted lead scales and
shavings, created when a service pipe is cut in half,
that flow through the water lines after the
replacement work.

"We've spent $93 million, we've torn up all these
neighborhoods, and it appears the situation is worse
than when we started," said D.C. Council member Jim
Graham (D-Ward 1), who chairs the council committee
that oversees WASA. "This raises serious questions
about what WASA has been doing all this time,
wittingly or unwittingly."

WASA officials, however, say that the addition of
orthophosphate to treat the water in 2004 has
dramatically reduced lead leaching and made the
District's water safe to drink.

But in a council hearing yesterday, Graham proposed
that the District government conduct independent
testing to determine whether drinking water is safe.
He said it was vital to address local activists'
allegations that WASA continues to try to conceal
health information from the public.

"I think it's probably needed at this point," he said.
He added that it was "of great concern" to him that he
learned of the spikes from an independent scientist
and questioned repeatedly why WASA officials had no
analysis to demonstrate the effectiveness of the
partial replacement program.

D.C. WASA General Manager Jerry N. Johnson
acknowledged that WASA tests show a spike in lead
levels after partial replacement. But he said he
believes it causes a short-term problem that is easily
resolved by customers running their taps for a minute
or two before drinking the water.

WASA staff said the agency has not generally retested
homes months later to verify whether the problem has
resolved itself, and that few customers send WASA
samples for analysis, as the agency allows, to
definitively answer the question.

Johnson and WASA Board Chairman Robin Martin said
yesterday that they could not comment further on
Edwards' analysis because they had first learned of it
Thursday.

The vast majority of the 14,600 lead pipes WASA has
replaced have been partial replacements. WASA made a
policy decision in 2004 to replace the public portion
of the lead service lines and require homeowners to
pay for replacing that portion of pipe on their
private property if they chose. Only 2,100 homeowners
have opted to pay the $2,000 apiece to complete a pipe
replacement. Another 3,400 owners had replaced the
lead pipes on their private property before WASA
arrived to do its work.

In Edwards's analysis of the 2006 tests, tap water
drawn within a week after the agency partially
replaced the lead service lines in 658 homes had
average lead levels of 260 parts per billion, 17 times
the amount the federal government considers unsafe in
drinking water.

The lead concentrations generally fell over time, the
tests show. Samples taken one to two months after the
replacement in the same homes had average lead levels
more than double the federal safety level of 15 parts
per billion.

The findings come as WASA's management is holding
public hearings to consider whether to discontinue its
accelerated replacement of lead service lines.

"Partial lead service replacement has been a complete
waste of money and has actually made things worse,"
Edwards said. "It should be stopped."

In 2004, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and
WASA said in public statements and studies that the
replacement of even half the lead pipe clearly reduced
lead levels. But more recently WASA said, in brochures
prepared for public meetings on reconsidering the
program, that partial replacement "is not as effective
as we would want," and the agency has to consider
whether this is a wise use of money. None said
anything about hazardous spikes of lead.

At the council hearing, environmental activists told
Graham that they do not trust WASA officials who say
the drinking water is safe because of their failure to
alert the public to high lead levels in 2004.

The advocates said yesterday that high lead levels
found in 2006 tests of D.C. school water may herald a
citywide problem, but WASA officials have refused to
discuss it.

"WASA is an agency that doesn't willingly share
information," said Ralph Scott of the Alliance for
Healthy Homes, a lead safety advocacy group. "They
don't like oversight. They spin, they twist. And -- I
don't say this lightly -- they don't always tell the
truth. "

Johnson said WASA warned homeowners of potential
spikes in lead after partial pipe replacement.

Homeowner Megan Keenan said that in 2004 she was given
a flier saying lead levels would probably be reduced
when WASA came to replace her service line, and only
warned of potential spikes after the work was
completed.

"We've told people there are spikes," Johnson said.
"To suggest we haven't been giving this out to the
public is incorrect."