Ludington Water Assets and Liabilities

[XLFD]

Last week, the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) hosted virtual town halls to provide information to residents on sampling that will be done in communities throughout the state to test the drinking water.  These were held Tuesday through Thursday with each day addressing a different part of Michigan (Southern Michigan, the Northern Lower Peninsula, and the Upper Peninsula).  Ironically, TV 9&10 didn't cover the town halls until they were through on Friday, with Ludington's City Manager Mitch Foster helping them through the new guidelines, albeit neither referred to anything that was presented at the virtual meetings:

New State Rules Bring Expensive Lead Pipe Replacement Guidelines

New stricter drinking water rules are now in place to improve Michigan’s aging and potentially dangerous infrastructure.
The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy Department is holding virtual town halls this week to explain the new Lead and Copper Rule.
But homeowners may have different questions than municipalities.
“I think Flint really sparked the conversation because it was such a massive deal,” says Mitch Foster, Ludington City Manager.
Ludington, like almost every town in Michigan, will be replacing lead water lines over the next two decades but it’s not because they’ve had issues.
“We’ve never had a bad lead test in the testing that we’ve done,” says Foster.
It’s part of the state’s new Lead and Copper Rule. Over a 20 year span, municipalities will have to replace at least 5% of their lead lines every year. For Ludington that will cost about $5 million.
“It’s a big chunk of cash for the city to take on,” says Foster, “We’re looking at $200,000-250,000 a year annually.”
The reason it is going to be so expensive is because over time the city has been replacing lead piping and getting it out of the system. But previous guidelines only meant they had to go to the curb side or the property line, now the new guidelines say they need to go 18 inches into the house. Even lines that they have already replaced, they are going to have to double back and do it again and do it further into the property.
“We’ve always typically, across the state, across the country, maintain the water mains into the curb stops and then it’s the private homeowners responsibility the rest of the way,” says Foster.
The work doesn’t start until 2021 but, before that, communities want clarification.
“There are quite a few lawsuits, or potential suits, out there from municipalities that are wondering how is this such a change going to happen?” says Foster, “Are we supposed to bear all that responsibility and cost?”
While never having an issue the city understands the precaution but it won’t be cheap or easy.
“We want to continue to make sure we never have issues with lead in our water,” says Foster. [END]

The EGLE provided us with a recording of the virtual town hall for our area (Northern Lower Michigan) and this follows: 

The video is primarily informative, showing how blood lead levels can be affected by the environment, why old and new rules have been changed in order to get those levels down even further.  Historical perspectives, action levels, how the new testing system works and what it detects.   

The first question from the public at 28:00 into the video asked about if a homeowner had a lead service line, when could they be expected to be notified by the utility provider about it.  Eric Oswald replied that the water distribution systems materials inventory is going to require that they go out and find these lead service lines.  When they find the lead service lines, the new rule requires them to notify the resident or the homeowner within thirty days.  So if they find a lead service line at your location 'you will know within thirty days', according to the Health and Human Services Department Director of Drinking Water and Environmental Health.  

Odd.  On July 2nd, I went down to the Ludington City Hall to view the fruit of a FOIA request, asking for a map or list showing 'where lead pipes (including lead goosenecks and lead solder between pipes) are (or suspected, if that metric is used) in the water supply system of Ludington.'   I was given two sizable maps (about 3 ft. X 5 ft.), the last dated June 3, 2019, the other from earlier this spring.  I nor the City could reproduce those maps due to their size. 

They were made by a reputable contractor who undoubtedly was doing it for a good price.  This work was approved by the city council last July as part of a $250,000 project paid for by the state through a grant.

The maps showed Ludington in three different colored areas:  pink, orange and green.  These represented old pipes where lead was seen or suspected, copper pipes, and PVC pipes respectively.  There were also uncolored spaces that reflected areas they did not know yet what the supply line pipes were made of, in the two months between maps, several of these spaces had gotten colored one of three ways.

A considerable amount of Ludington was in the pink, about the same amount was orange and very few places were green.   Sadly, Foster Elementary, PM Elementary, and Lakeview Elementary were all supplied water through archaic piping.  Much of downtown was pink as was my Dowland estate.

Rather than alert the homes where the City has information that the pipes are potentially hazardous, the City has sat on this information, contrary to Michigan Department of Health and Human Safety's Eric Oswald's assertion in a virtual town hall that the water distributor (City of Ludington) must make it known to their customers within 30 days of the utility finding the problem pipes.  

I would advise the City, in the interests of public safety and in order to follow the sensible state rules, to begin notifying homeowners in the pink that they need to exercise precautions when using the water for drinking.  Then, find a way to share that map with all of us who may be affected; somebody is able to do that with the zoning map, after all.  

[shinblind]

It would be interesting to compare the addresses used for previous water tests with the area they were taken from, the pink, orange or green. 

[XLFD]

That will be done eventually.  Great point, shinblind, although I can estimate from what I've seen that few of those addresses tested were in the worse problem areas-- most of the houses tested seemed to be in the more recent houses in more recent additions in the north of town.  

I've informed the city manager that I would love to be among the volunteers in Ludington to do the new test, involving collecting the first and fifth quarts.  I would advise anybody who finds themselves in the pink areas to do likewise.  Unfortunately, some of the residences that need this test the most, large families, will get a skewed result on their testing, simply because it's nigh impossible to not use water for six hours in such households.

[Willy]

Good topic X. I to wonder, in what area, the past tests were conducted. It could be that Ludington has a very serious lead contamination problem which has been covered up for many years. Don't forget that tourists have also  been drinking the water and the elites certainly don't want to have Ludington labeled as "Ludington, Lead by the Lake".

[Sharon]

This is really important information. I am guessing replacing service lines is pretty expensive in Michigan. Guessing they are deep. Hoping the schools are using filters and prioritizing line replacement. I will be installing filters and cleaning aerators often (who knew?).

[XLFD]

Fortunately, the schools in Ludington did 'first draw' tests on all of their taps and water fountains just a few years back, and found a couple of older water fountains that tested high because of lead solder that they used in such fountains until about 1980.  They replaced those.  

Lead ions from water system connections won't generally show themselves after the system has had water flowing through, so it would be great if the first person showing up at a school in the morning would flush the system for a couple of minutes.  Often, such systems can remain stagnant from when janitors leave on Friday night, to when Monday morning comes.  Without a flush, that coffee pot in the teacher's lounge or that tap used to prepare school breakfasts may get water that's been in contact with lead piping for over 60 hours.  Once that's through, the rest should be relatively safe without needing filters or aerators for every water source.

The same process should be done in homes that suspect they have lead piping.  If you don't have a lead filter system, be wary whenever you get water for drinking.  Any time that nobody has used water for awhile, there may be a lead-kick in that fifth quart or thereabouts.  This may happen when you wake up, get home from work/school, or come back from a family outing/vacation.  If somebody has just finished a shower, or watered the lawn (don't need that today), it should be safe.

[stump]

 I have a new water service [ couple years old ] from the curb stop and my water has a dirt taste.  I don't know of any digging going on in the area.

[XLFD]

Might want to check with your neighbors and see whether they notice the same taste, if they do, I would contact the City about it as the problem seems to lie in their part of the system.  If this taste is noticed only from one of your taps, you may want to unscrew and clean the aerator and see whether the problem remains.

If not, perhaps your water line has been invaded by geosmin, a mix of soil and plant bacteria, or algae blooms.  It only takes 10 nanograms of geosmin per liter for the human palate to detect a dirt-like taste in water.  Algae blooms generally only show up in summer months, so if your water tastes okay during cooler weather, that may be your cause. 

Filters can usually help in these situations, as could properly using an algicide or bactericide and then flushing the system.