An inventory of Kansas City’s water service lines hasn’t turned up any lead pipes yet, but that doesn’t mean the city is finished looking — or out of the woods.
Takeaways
- An inventory of Kansas City’s 178,000 water service lines hasn’t turned up any lead pipes yet, but almost 23,000 galvanized steel lines that could be tainted by lead would cost more than $450 million to replace. The city hopes that can be avoided.
- Water pipes made out of lead, which were banned in new construction 40 years ago, are the biggest reason people are exposed to lead in drinking water.
- Lead exposure can cause damaging and permanent health effects. Health experts believe no level of exposure to the toxic metal is safe.
KC Water’s initial investigation, which involved searching public records like building permits and other filings, found that almost three-quarters of the city’s 178,000 service lines are not lead. But the materials used for 24,827 lines remain unknown, and 22,951 are made of galvanized steel and classified by the Environmental Protection Agency as “requiring replacement.”
Although KC Water officials are hopeful they can show that many of the galvanized lines are safe to leave in the ground, replacing them could cost the utility — and ultimately ratepayers — more than $450 million, between $12,500 and $20,000 per line. Property owners are responsible for paying for the portion of the line running from their house to the city’s line.
The city encourages homeowners to buy insurance for their portion of the water line, but that coverage is unlikely to include a lead or galvanized line replacement. Myles Meehan, a spokesperson for HomeServe, said the company’s service plans “are designed only for the emergency repair or replacement of service lines that are experiencing an operational failure … due to normal wear and tear.”…