GREENSBORO, N.C. — Folks in cities across North Carolina are getting letters in the mail and those letters are causing a panic. The letters contain verbiage like: "important information about your drinking water", "water pipe", "unknown material", and "could be made of lead or galvanized pipe".
These words certainly get your attention, which is what the government wants, because they need you to respond. But you don't need to panic.
Tap Score, a water testing company explains:
In 2021 the EPA revised the Lead and Copper Rule or LCR as it's called to require all water utilities to create inventories of their service lines and identify which of those service lines are made of lead. By November 2024 of this year, the EPA requires that your utility share this inventory of pipe materials with you.
If you got a letter it means the city doesn't know what kind of pipe goes from the water meter into your house. You might not know either.
IT'S FREE & EASY TO FIND OUT WHAT KIND OF PIPE YOU HAVE
You're looking for your water service pipe. It starts at your water meter and runs to your house. You can look at the pipe coming from your water meter or the pipe at the shut-off valve, which could be in a crawl space, basement, or closet.
There are three kinds of pipe, lead, copper, and galvanized pipe. You may need to scrape off sediment to see what color the pipe is. The lead pipe is gray. A galvanized pipe is gray as well, but you know it's galvanized if it's also magnetic. You can use a fridge magnet to figure it out.
If you have lead or galvanized steel, these pipes will need to be replaced.
3 THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT THE PIPES YOU HAVE
Whatever kind of pipe you have, you need to let the city know --so they can put it in the inventory.
If you have a pipe that needs to be replaced, IT'S FREE. But you have to go through the city.
If you don't respond to the letter, guess what? You're going to get another one.
