Municipal Authority of Westmoreland County officials said they suspect just 3% of its water system contains lead service lines and have started to notify impacted home and business owners of its findings.
An inventory of the system’s more than 123,000 customers revealed more than 4,000 properties could be serviced by lead pipes. But a project to identify lead service lines that started in 2021 has confirmed more than 2,400 lines throughout the authority’s five-county service area, officials said this month.
“These lines are scattered throughout the system, but, in places like Apollo and in North Apollo, there are more,” said MAWC spokesman Matt Junker.
MAWC services customers in Westmoreland, Allegheny, Armstrong, Fayette and Indiana counties.
The authority has released a map that details its findings, in which property owners can check to see if their waterlines were identified as containing lead. The map continues to be updated.
Officials said the inventory was compiled through data obtained in person by work crews, from reports of property owners and statistical modeling.
Junker said MAWC’s water customers have been asked to send pictures of service lines to assist the authority’s efforts to identify lead pipes. The authority has distributed more than 8,500 door hangers at properties throughout its service area where lead pipes are suspected but yet to be confirmed.
Pennsylvania banned the use of lead pipes in 1991. MAWC officials said its inventory assumed structures built after 1991 are free of lead lines.
Stephanie Wein, a clean water and conservation advocate with PennEnvironmental Research and Policy Center, said lead continues to be a danger in local water supplies.
MAWC’s findings appears to be below national and regional results published in lead pipe inventories throughout Pennsylvania and the nation.
“This is a good place to start, but these results perpetually show there’s more lead out there than what people think,” Wein said. She said additional testing is required to locate all lead pipes in a service area. The inventories are a first step in what should be an ongoing process to eliminate all lead lines, she said.
Under a new rule authorized in October by the Biden administration, local water providers are mandated to begin replacement of lead waterlines by 2027. All lead lines are required to be replaced by 2037.
That work could be endangered should the incoming Trump administration repeal or scale back the new lead rule imposed by federal officials this fall.
“It’s certainly a concern,” Wein said. “It would be an absolute tragedy to see this rule walked back.”
Annual testing has found no discernible lead in MAWC’s water supply, Junker said.
Still, the authority continues work to identify and eventually replace lead service lines.
The authority this year received a $1 million state grant to replace as many as 200 lead lines in Vandergrift, East Vandergrift, North Vandergrift, Leechburg and West Leechburg. Work is expected to start in March, according to MAWC manager Michael Kukura.
He said the authority also is seeking a $10 million state loan to continue its lead line replacement program throughout MAWC’s system.
The Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority, which serves about 300,000 customers, has been replacing lead service lines since 2016. According to the agency’s website, it replaced more than 11,900 lead lines over the past eight years and is on pace to finish its work in 2026.
Officials said the city agency has spent more than $160 million on its lead line replacement program.