Ludington Braces for Higher Lead Readings Under New Test

[XLFD]

Meaningful lead testing of drinking water for residential homes in Ludington (and the rest of Michigan) have finally reached our shore.  Soon to be in the barbaric past is the feel-good and otherwise worthless testing mandated by the state that could only catch lead problems in the immediate fixtures, most of which have been changed within the last forty years.  

The new testing method involves collecting not only the first liter of water that issues from your faucet after at least six hours of water-abstinence, but also the fifth liter, so that when both are tested they can give a better indication of where the lead contamination is coming from, if any is detected.  A video below explains the steps which are only marginally more complicated than the current test, which takes only the first liter.  It appears amidst an article by Mlive writer Emily Lawler which is also reproduced below. 

LANSING, MI -- State officials expect to see higher-than-usual lead readings in communities across Michigan starting this summer due to a change in how the water is tested, said Liesl Eichler Clark, director of the state Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy.

“We expect action level exceedances. We expect to find more lead. We are looking in a different way with more precision,” Eichler Clark said.

The changes come as part of revisions to the state’s rules -- by 2025, the state will have a standard of 12 parts per billion, more stringent than the federal standard of 15 parts per billion.
But the changes also affect how water is tested.

To perform the test previously, people would collect and test the first liter of water that comes out of the tap. Under the new protocol, people collect the first liter, discard the second, third and fourth liters, and then collect the fifth liter. Both the first and fifth liter are tested.

“The idea behind that was it helps us see into the service line, right, because we’re taking water a little further down,” said Eichler Clark.

State water supplies are tested on a rolling basis, and the first lead reading exceeding the federal action level this year has already come in.
Near Bay City in Hampton Township, residents found out recently area lead tests had identified lead at levels above the federal action level of 15 parts per billion.  There, officials are recommending residents flush faucets for three to five minutes per day.  When a community hits the action level, it triggers things like additional sampling and educational outreach to customers.

Tim Neumann, executive director of the Michigan Rural Water Association, said the new testing protocol lets municipalities see farther into a service line and what effect it’s having on a resident’s water supply. As far as what that will reveal, “We’re not sure what to expect,” he said.

MRWA went to a training by EGLE, and is working to train representatives from municipal water supplies who couldn’t make it. From there, water administrators will be educating residents on how to perform the tests.

“After seeing this first batch of samples go through, it’s going to give us a lot of answers and the state a lot of answers,” Neumann said.

The state, too, is working to educate people on the new test and the new, higher readings people may see. EGLE is seeking $3 million in the supplemental appropriation currently on Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s desk to help get the word out.

“What changed is the precision with which we are testing the water, and so we’re getting better information. People’s water hasn’t changed,” Eichler Clark said.

She said she expects to see numbers tick up, particularly in older communities. And that ties in, she said, to the state’s challenge of aging pipes underground.

“We talk about roads all the time. We’ve got to deal with our water infrastructure,” Eichler Clark said.

It should be noted that the previous city manager and current utility maintenance supervisor have both confirmed that there are plenty of lead goosenecks throughout the City's archaic water system, and that some of the older water mains have lead solder in their couplings, a sizable grant was received to fix some on North James Street recently.  

Multiple officials have downplayed the issue explaining that there are other places where lead contamination can come from, some have went so far as to blame old houses covered with lead based paints, without explaining why many counties and cities with older housing than Ludington had rates over ten times lower.  Councilor Winczewski went so far as passing lead pipes around council chambers saying that due to oxidation, they were completely safe to handle and drink from.

The Ludington Torch has offered a challenge to city leaders, including the current mayor, to test water out of one of these gooseneck pipes after it has had Ludington tap water inside of it for six hours.  If Councilor Winczewski's theory is correct, and every official around during her presentation seemed to be in complicit agreement, there should be nothing more than a trace; yet I have done the same and have had the Grand Rapids lab call me and say the lead readings on my sample was in an amount more than what they could handle or measure and that I should not think of using that source ever again.

If you are a Ludington resident and believe that you may reside in an area of the City that may have very old water supply pipes, it would definitely be worth your while to tell city hall that you would like your water tested this time around and using the new method.  

[Willy]

The test does not make sense. The first sample is obviously coming directly from piping in the house. The last bottle could be from the main feeder line or from the main out in the street which could have been flushed by neighbors running their water. The size of the pipe, length of the pipe and flow rate should be known to calculate exactly where the 5th liter of water is coming from. I would guess that the most important would be the flow rate or how much water is exiting the tap. I see nothing wrong with the 5 liter system as long as the test can verify where in the system the water is captured from. Another problem is that any fixture being tested must  have  older piping because if newly installed the first sample will not be useful and the 5th may be useless as well if the water sample is from the street water main. I bet that the State and Counties are being swamped with test request so they decided to eliminate 60% of the testing to speed up the processing of samples.

[XLFD]

The test is more of an efficient 'triangulation' with two data points on where there may be lead in your pipes-- it's almost like four tests in one.  There are four general cases when you have this being tested this way, assuming the testers and preparers did their side of the tests properly:

1)  Both tests show trace or zero lead:  Likely, your home's water system is safe.

2)  Both tests show significant lead content:  Likely both the immediate fixtures and the pipe in from the street have lead in them somewhere.

3)  1st liter shows lead, 5th shows zero:  Lead in the immediate fixtures, but not in the supply line.

4)  1st liter shows zero lead, 5th shows lead:  Lead is coming from somewhere up the supply line.  

The fifth liter will generally catch water coming from somewhere between your front lawn and the water main in the street for most cities.  If that part of the test shows anything above zero, you should be concerned, since the actual source of contamination may be a little ways off, and it is reacting with the water.  This could be a lead pipe or solder as part of your plumbing, or more likely from the goosenecks or water main.  Little more relevant data could be received by testing the intermediate liters of water.

Anything other than result one that is found in the City's water testing results should make it clear that our tap water is reactive with lead pipes-- that is if you didn't already believe that when a couple of our schools tested above the action levels for a water tap and fountain.  

[Willy]

Thanks for the information X. You have a way of clarifying and explaining information.  Parents need to be proactive by getting on top of this situation and not waiting for the City to come along and reassure them that everything is OK. As far as I know lead damage to the nervous system is not reversible.

[Sharon]

I have a very old house and would like to know how you went about testing the water. I know that my Father had our water tested about fifteen years ago but I would like to run it again, new method. Is it something you can buy off the shelf in town somewhere?  

[XLFD]

Sort of.  If you go down to the District Health Dept. #10-- located across from the DHS near the Community Mental Health Building in the local hospital complex-- you can ask the front desk for a lead kit.  Be advised, if they have it in stock, it may be the old testing kit.  You can either get two and pay around $20 each for the test, or if you are fairly certain about your sink fixtures, you can just test the fifth quart (liter) and see whether the service pipes to your house may have lead in them and are reacting with the water.  Do just what it does in the video above, but just send in the fifth bottle.  

I do have an extra one somewhere if they are out.  Be advised, the water test kits you can get for free at the local hardware stores do not check for lead, they are there to entice you into purchasing water softening equipment and the like.