Kentuckians will soon get notices from their water utilities as part of a national plan to eliminate water lines made of the neurotoxin lead — along with a chance to replace suspect pipes at no cost to themselves.

The notices will tell property owners if they have lead or galvanized water lines on their property and if there are utility-owned lead lines going to the property that need to be replaced. Property owners will also get a notice if the material in a water line is not known.

Utilities are mailing the notices as part of new regulations finalized last month by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that seek to remove lead water lines across the country over the next 10 years. But environmental protection officials and water utilities first need to know where lead water lines are.

Lead is a harmful neurotoxin, especially to children, that can leach into drinking water through aging lead water lines that were primarily installed from the late 1800s to the 1940s. No amount of lead is considered safe in a child’s blood. Congress banned the installation of lead water lines in 1986.?

The federal Bipartisan Infrastructure law is providing $15 billion to pay for new lines. Local utilities, including in Louisville, have developed programs to cover the costs of replacing lead and galvanized pipes for property owners.?

An EPA report from September 2023 projected fewer than 1% of service lines, or roughly 40,000, in Kentucky contain lead. Service lines connect a utility’s water main to a building.The estimate is based on the number of lead lines found in other states that have conducted full inventories. It’s unknown what 265,000 service lines in Kentucky are made of, according to the September 2023 report. The status of more than 500,000 lines had not yet been reported by water utilities.

Joe Burns, the director of operations and management for the utility group Kentucky Rural Water Association, told the Lantern decades-old records, especially for Kentucky’s older cities, make it hard to determine the composition of some water lines.?

Records are spotty even in smaller communities where water systems were developed in the 1950s, Burns said. “We’re talking 70 years ago and paper plans — much of that doesn’t exist.”?

Determining a water line’s status is further complicated because lines on a homeowner’s property are the responsibility of the homeowner, Burns said, and utilities often don’t have information about the status of lines on private property.?

Notices will be sent to property owners if the water line is known to be lead or if the status is unknown, says a release from the Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet.

Property owners with known galvanized water lines will also receive notices advising them to replace those lines because lead from pipes elsewhere in a water system can also leach into the galvanized pipe. Utilities are required to replace lead and galvanized water lines owned and managed by the utility within 10 years under the regulations. Such replacements would also include lead or galvanized water lines extending on to a private property to comply with the regulation, though utilities would need a property owner’s consent to replace such a line on their property.?

State officials are encouraging Kentuckians to respond to the mailed notices to have the water utility verify the material of the water line or have the property owner verify the line themselves. The new regulations prohibit the partial replacement of lead water lines when possible, with an EPA advisory board previously finding the partial replacement of such lines can create elevated levels of lead in water systems compared to the complete replacement of such lines.?

The EPA is investing $15 billion — funneled through state revolving loan programs along with other federal loan and grant opportunities. The Kentucky Infrastructure Authority handles the revolving loan programs in Kentucky.

Burns said he thinks the issue of lead lines is much more prominent in Kentucky’s older cities such as Paducah, Owensboro and Louisville compared to rural water districts across the state that were established in the 1960s when lead line use, while not banned, was not favored by water utilities.

Burns said the Louisville Water Co., which is responsible for drinking water infrastructure in the city, is an example of a utility that’s been proactive in removing lead water lines even before new federal regulations went into effect. The Louisville Courier Journal reported that the utility has spent $50 million to replace approximately 74,000 lead water lines in past decades.