Communities across West Virginia have long struggled with aging water infrastructure, causing dayslong — or even weekslong — water outages and boil notice advisories as the state’s water systems have reported more than a billion dollars worth of necessary upgrades.
Now, a new federal rule has drawn attention to another concern: exposure to lead from lead pipes.
Water utilities must replace all lead service lines by 2037, with the backing of more than $15 billion in federal funding. But the Trump administration has begun a review of the rule and could target it alongside other measures it plans to roll back.
Federal regulators have known for decades about the human health danger of lead exposure through drinking water, proposing the first Lead and Copper Rule in 1991. The latest rule finalized by the EPA in October near the end of the Biden administration offers a significant opportunity to tackle the public health threat posed by lead pipes.
But first they have to find them.
“What the rule does is it acknowledges for the first time that if we’re going to achieve safety, these pipes actually have to come out of the ground,†said Valerie Baron, national policy director of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Safe Water Initiative.
While lead is harmful to everyone, children and infants are most vulnerable because they can be impacted by lower levels of lead than adults, causing a variety of physical and behavioral impacts. In children, lead exposure can damage the brain and nervous system, which can result in slowed growth and development as well as learning, behavior, hearing and speech problems. Lead exposure in adults can impact blood pressure and kidney function and cause reproductive problems.
Finding the lead lines, and replacing them
The problem of lead exposure in water lines is not new to West Virginia.
In 2021, after the state health department discovered three children in Clarksburg had elevated blood lead levels, the EPA issued a rare emergency order directing the city to identify homes serviced by lead lines, provide alternative water sources to those affected and continue to replace lead service lines.
The water system is now in the process of replacing about 4,000 lead service lines.
As of 2023, West Virginia water companies reported that they did not know the makeup of about two-thirds of their water service lines, according to EPA’s most recent survey. That number, which is the third highest among the states, is due to a variety of reasons, including lack of information about the customer-portions of service lines.
Service lines are divided into two parts: the utility side that runs from the water main to the water meter on the customer’s property and the customer side that runs from the water meter into the home itself. In the past, water companies have not been required to know the material on the customer’s side.
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If a utility company knows what material their portion of a service line is but doesn’t know it on the customer side, the EPA considers the entire water line an unknown, according to Wheeling Water Superintendent Lori Siburt.
While the federal agency classifies all of Wheeling Water’s roughly 13,000 service lines as unknown, Siburt said only about 15% of their service lines are currently undetermined.
“According to the EPA we have a lot of unknowns, but that’s not really the case,†Siburt said. “We just don’t know what’s on the customer side.â€
The 2024 EPA rule also updated water sampling requirements that are more likely to detect lead and lowered the concentration level at which additional monitoring is required to 10 parts per billion even though the agency itself has determined there is no amount of lead in water that is safe.
Homes built after 1988 are probably safe because the federal government’s ban of lead pipes took effect in 1986 but became enforceable two years later, according to the EPA and NRDC.
In a lawsuit challenging the 2024 rule, the EPA asked for a 60-day pause to allow the agency’s new leadership to review the regulations, noting that the courts have previously recognized agencies can review and revise their past decisions if necessary. Last month, a measure to repeal the rule was introduced in the House of Representatives.
The money earmarked for this effort could also be in limbo as President Donald Trump moved to freeze funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law through executive orders and a memo from the White House’s budget office that has since been rescinded but is still working through the courts.
Identifying water lines requires customer input
All over the state, water companies started mapping all of the lines in their systems. Down south in Shady Spring, the Cool Ridge Flat Top Public Service District mailed customers letters.
In Monongalia County, the water authority is working to identify its more than 25,000 service lines through surveys, record searches, photos and field inspections. Up in the Northern Panhandle, Wheeling Water has set up a QR code that customers can scan to enter their information in the survey.
The Cool Ridge Flat Top Public Service District has finished its inventory of roughly 2,000 service lines, finding no lead pipes. Office Manager Nickie Mitchell said it took some hard work.
“We mailed all our customers first a letter and we probably got 25% back willingly. And then we had to hound them,†she said.
While individual water systems are required by the EPA to provide guidance or resources to help customers identify their service lines, the EPA has an online step-by-step guide on how people can check the material of their water line.
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