Many residents in the city of Albany, NY received lead pipe warnings
If you happened to get a pink post card in the mail from the City of Albany it means they’ve confirmed that you have a lead pipe going to your home. Either the line in your home has lead, the one connecting the public to your home, or possibly both. It can be a pretty alarming thing to hear considering the dangers of lead to infants, pregnant women, and young children.
I got this pink post car by mail this weekend. I have young children so I am obviously a bit concerned about the pipes in my home.
How to check if your water lines are lead
The City of Albany’s water department out out a video about a year ago on how to determine if the water line going into your home is lead or not. There are two pretty simple ways the determine this.
- See if a magnet sticks to parts of the pipe. Lead isn’t magnetized so if the magnet doesn’t stick you likely have lead. Be sure it’s not copper, because copper is also not magnetized.
- To determine whether it might be copper of lead use a key to scratch the pipe. If the scratches aren’t copper color, you are dealing with lead.
Apparently this is a bigger issue around the country as a whole and not just limited to the City of Albany or New York. According to the EPA,…