DEP rule change will benefit AWA

Authority must comply with agency’s Lead and Copper Rule

A recent decision by the state Department of Environmental Protection will make it easier for the Altoona Water Authority to comply with the Environmental Protection Agency's Lead and Copper Rule.

According to the DEP decision, water utilities can now tentatively categorize customer-owned service lines as needing to be replaced if they're downstream from authority-owned service lines that need to be replaced -- without actually checking the customer lines.

That will enable the authority to complete segments of its inventory of service lines sooner, so it can apply earlier for grants to help with line replacement work. It will also enable the authority to avoid expensive preliminary excavations at the curb to determine the composition of customer lines.

Now the authority can wait to confirm the composition of those customer service lines until curbs are opened up for replacement of problematic utility-owned service lines, according to Water Operations Director Mike Bianconi.

To confirm that a customer line isn't problematic requires it to be checked at two points -- inside the customer's basement, which isn't difficult, and at the curb, which is a problem if, as previously thought, the authority needed to do that simply to complete the required inventory.

That would have meant hydro excavation with specialized machinery.

The change has allowed the authority to shrink the number of customer service lines in the "unknown" category from 17,000 to 11,000, according to Bianconi.

There are no actual lead service lines in the Altoona system, as far as authority officials know.

But there are a number of flexible lead "goosenecks," a foot or two long, connecting water mains with utility-owned service lines, according to Bianconi.

When there is a galvanized service line owned by either the utility or the customer downstream from a lead gooseneck, it is categorized as "galvanized needing replacement" -- and it must be replaced, along with the gooseneck itself.

Such galvanized lines need to be replaced because they tend to capture lead molecules that may have leached off the gooseneck and that in turn can leach from the galvanized piping as water passes through.

When utility-owned service lines downstream of goosenecks are made of copper or plastic, neither the goosenecks nor the lines need to be replaced, by rule.

But the authority plans to replace them anyway, to get rid of the lead comprising the goosenecks, and because the authority-owned service lines downstream will almost certainly be old enough to warrant replacement anyway, Bianconi said.

While for purposes of statistical compilation, the customer service lines downstream of goosenecks will be categorized as needing replacement, they won't actually need to be replaced if they're made of copper or plastic, Bianconi said.

Checking customer service lines in the basement alone isn't sufficient to confirm a line isn't problematic because there could be a copper or plastic stub connected to galvanized piping that begins just outside building foundations, Bianconi said.

If a customer service line downstream of a lead gooseneck is galvanized at any point, it needs to be replaced.

Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 814-949-7038.