Through a large project to replace aging pipelines that run beneath streets, The City of Birmingham Regional Water Works has been partially replacing smaller service lines that connect those main pipes to homes and buildings.

When those service lines are made of lead or galvanized metal, these partial replacements could significantly increase lead levels in drinking water for weeks or months, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and health research.

In drinking water, there is no safe level of lead, which can severely harm physical development and cause irreversible brain damage in children and lead to heart disease, stroke, kidney problems and reproductive harm in adults, according to EPA.

Managers of Birmingham’s regional water works said the utility provides property owners with information and water pitchers with filters to reduce lead exposure when it partially replaces service lines made of lead, galvanized metal or unknown materials. Galvanized metal service lines can absorb and release lead.

“We have a process when it relates to lead that we have to follow, that we do follow,” said Derrick Murphy, assistant general manager of engineering and maintenance for the water works. “We have a protocol with that.”

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This is the second in a series of stories on water line replacement in the Birmingham area.

Monday: Legal, Funding Questions Surround Mandate To Replace Lead Water Lines

Coming Thursday: Is there lead in your water?

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But Erik D. Olson, senior strategic director for health at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said partially replacing lead or galvanized metal service lines has never been responsible from a health perspective and now doesn’t make sense from a cost standpoint because new EPA regulations require utilities to fully replace all lead service lines and galvanized lines that have ever been downstream of lead pipes by 2037.

“It’s really a terrible idea to be doing partial service line replacement,” Olson said. “For one thing, it’s well documented that this will increase the lead levels that people are drinking for at least some prolonged period of time – maybe months, a year, it depends on the situation. Also, under the regulations, they’re going to have to dig those (service lines) back up.

The water works’ main pipeline replacement program is an ongoing effort to replace pipes that have surpassed their expected lifespans. These old water mains, which are large pipes that run under streets and carry water to entire neighborhoods, are largely responsible for leaks that are causing the system to lose massive amounts of water. Water works managers said the utility is annually replacing 15 to 17 miles of main pipelines, which are not made of lead.

Service lines are smaller pipes that connect individual homes or buildings to those main lines. One portion of each service line connects the main line to the meter, which is typically near the road, while another portion connects the meter to the home or building and is usually on private property.

Where present, lead service lines are typically the most significant source of lead in drinking water, according to the EPA.

While most service lines in the Birmingham regional water works system are not made of lead or galvanized metal requiring replacement under the new EPA rule, 471 lines are known to be made of those materials, and the material type of about 39,000 service lines is unknown, according to managers.

As part of the regional water works’ main pipeline replacement program, the utility replaces the portion of service lines between main lines and meters as well as a small section of service line on the other side of meters, said Mac Underwood, general manager of the water works. The rest of the service line that runs to the home or building is on private property, and the water works doesn’t have authority to work on private property.

“EPA is saying we need to replace all the way to the house, but we can’t really work on private property,” Underwood said. “We’ve got a 6-foot right of way into somebody’s yard. That’s the way it is in Alabama. But in New York, in Boston, a lot of the meters are on the inside of a house or inside of a building. So they can work between the main and the building as long as they can get to that meter.”

Underwood said the water works is trying to determine how it can replace the section of service lines from meters to homes and buildings.

Lead Risks Increase When Lead Service Lines Are Partially Replaced

Citing health research, the EPA states that partial lead service line replacement can significantly increase lead levels in drinking water. Lead and galvanized service lines are likely to undergo significant disturbance during infrastructure work or emergency repairs, increasing risks from all lead sources that remain following the work, the EPA states in its Lead and Copper Rule Improvements.

The LCRI requires public water systems by 2037 to identify and fully replace all lead service lines and galvanized metal service lines that have ever been downstream of lead pipes.

It also bans partial replacement of those lines beginning in November 2027. Birmingham regional water works managers said the utility will continue the practice of partially replacing lead and galvanized service lines until EPA guidelines specify otherwise.

“There is no doubt that partial lead service line replacements can result in significantly elevated levels of lead in tap water and that this contamination can continue for weeks and months,”  a 2010 publication in a National Institutes of Health library quotes EPA chemist Michael Schock saying.

Disturbing lead service lines or even having heavy equipment operating in the street near them is risky because of the way lead typically enters the water supply, Olson said.

“What we often see is most of the lead exposure in a lot of places is from what we call particulate lead that’s in the service lines,” he said. “These are often invisible little flakes of lead that accumulate on the inside of the pipes.”

Disturbances and vibrations can cause those particles to release.

When utilities partially replace lead service lines, EPA currently requires them to provide notification to affected residences within 45 days before replacement about the potential for elevated lead levels and measures to minimize exposure; include an offer to collect a tap sample for lead testing within 72 hours of replacement; and provide test results within three business days after receiving results.

The water works’ pre-construction notification letter doesn’t include an offer to collect a tap sample, but managers said in a statement that the utility “follows the EPA’s requirements with this process and collects samples.”

Steps Taken During Partial Service Line Replacement

Birmingham regional water works managers said the utility takes precautionary steps when conducting partial service line replacements.

About 55 days before construction in areas with potential lead service lines, customers who have lead, galvanized or an unknown service line material receive notice from the water works, which also delivers water pitchers with filters to customers to be used during and after construction.

A 2023 review of 21 studies shows the ANSI/NSF 53 water filters that the Birmingham regional water works distributes were 99% effective at reducing lead to levels at or below the certification benchmark in field studies. In laboratory studies, where researchers often tested filters under conditions beyond what they were intended to handle and sometimes operated or maintained them improperly, the filters were 61% effective at reducing lead levels to the benchmark.

Underwood said the water works has been distributing water pitchers with filters for more than two years. The utility buys about 720 pitchers annually, based on the number of scheduled projects, he said.

As a standard practice to mitigate the risk of lead leaching into tap water, the water works in Birmingham and other water utilities use a corrosion control treatment that forms a protective layer inside pipes. The EPA requires such corrosion control treatment, and the LCRI strengthens those requirements.

EPA states that consistently well-operated and optimized corrosion control treatment is generally effective at reducing lead to low levels, and water works managers said the utility’s corrosion control treatment is highly effective.

“This treatment has been very successful in keeping lead levels in our drinking water well below regulatory limits,” water works managers said in a statement. “However, no treatment can eliminate the risk entirely, particularly when pipes are disturbed during construction or replacement. These disturbances can temporarily dislodge lead particles into the water.”

Plastic Service Lines Questioned

Water works managers said the new service lines the utility installs are made of cross-linked polyethylene, a type of plastic known as PEX.

In 2022, the Natural Resources Defense Council, along with 18 other health and environmental groups, created a guiding principles document for the replacement of lead service lines. It advises installing lines made of copper rather than plastic, which is less studied as a drinking water conduit.

“While plastic is cheaper, there are significant questions about plastic pipes including whether they will leach chemicals, whether they will allow permeation of toxic chemicals into the water from contaminated groundwater, and how long they will last,” the guide states.

According to water works managers, during the past five years the utility has partially replaced 59 lead service lines, 1,105 galvanized service lines and 2,424 service lines made of unknown materials.

Main Replacement Project Aims To Reduce Leaks

Through the overall main replacement program, water works managers say leaks that account for 40% of water that flows through the utility’s system will be reduced.

The water works is focusing on replacing about 584 miles of unlined cast iron and galvanized pipes, many of which are more than 50 years old and have surpassed their expected lifespan, said Murphy, the water works’ assistant general manager of engineering and maintenance.

“Those two materials account for only about 14.2% of our inventory of pipe material in our entire system, but they make up close to 70% of all our leaks in our system as well, which does impact, if we don’t take care of that – water staying in the tanks and things of that nature, our system being depressurized,” Murphy said.

Depressurization in a water system can reduce water supply for customers. According to the EPA, pressure loss also endangers public health because of the high potential for contaminants to enter the system through backflow of water in plumbing systems and through pipe joints and holes.

Despite leaks, the Birmingham regional system is well pressurized, Patrick Flannelly, senior vice president for Arcadis North America, an engineering consultant for the water works, said during a May 19 work session of the utility’s board of directors.

“This system operates at relatively high pressure,” Flannelly said. “The leaks are pressurized. They push water out. They don’t compromise the integrity of the water quality for our customers.”

The water works has reported that 48% of the water it processes is not paid for, which includes water lost to leaks as well as water the utility uses itself, water flowing through faulty meters and siphoned by unauthorized users, and water lost due to pipeline flushing that’s required to maintain water quality. Flannelly said that percentage of non-revenue water places the water works in the fourth quartile of water utilities nationally, relative to an average non-revenue water percentage of 20% to 30%.

Birmingham’s regional water works needs to reduce water lost to leaks from 40% to 20%, he said. “We’ve just got to have a plan, a managed plan, to get there, to be able to afford it,” he continued.

Priority Areas

Ten water-main replacement projects are currently underway, and the water works plans to begin five more soon, according to the utility’s replacement projects web page. The utility lists 63 projects as completed.

Murphy said a typical main replacement project takes six months to a year.

The water works is prioritizing pipeline replacement projects based on factors such as leak frequency, pipe age and proximity to schools, hospitals and large neighborhoods, Murphy said.

“For the most part, just in our five-county region, the city of Birmingham is, by far, the oldest historic area,” Murphy said. “They’re going to have a lot more aged infrastructure than an area that has just developed since the last 40 years.”

 Murphy said while pipeline replacement in the large system, which serves about 770,000 customers, is always ongoing, the water works accelerated the program about five years ago.

The water works previously replaced 3 to 5 miles of pipelines annually, but in 2020, the replacement rate increased to between 15 and 17 miles per year. Funding for the pipeline replacement program ramped up from about $12 million a year to between $20 million and $30 million per year, he said.

From 2015 to 2024, the utility replaced 116 miles of galvanized pipe, which is the equivalent of a round trip from Birmingham to Tuscaloosa, managers said.

At the current rate, replacing the remaining 584 miles of galvanized and unlined cast iron pipe the utility is targeting would take about 40 years, Murphy said.

If the program were accelerated, savings from reduced leaks would not cover the costs. Cutting the amount of unbilled water by 20% would save $4.3 million annually, and replacing pipelines costs $1.5 million per mile, Flannelly said. It would take 187 years of savings, at $4.3 million annually, to pay for 500 miles of new pipelines.

Murphy noted that the pipes the water works is installing should last much longer than those removed. The new, ductile metal pipes have zinc coatings to prevent rust and corrosion, and their useful life spans are 100 to 125 years, he said.