Rocky Top must check for lead pipes carrying drinking water to homes
Rocky Top wants to find out whether anyone in the city still has water pipes made of lead running into their homes or businesses.
While the city’s own lead water lines have long been replaced, there still could be homes or businesses using lead pipes to carry drinking water from their meters, Mayor Kerry Templin said during last Thursday’s October City Council meeting.
Because of that, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is requiring Rocky Top to do an inventory of its water customers – somewhere between 800 and 900, Templin said – to check for lines made of lead.
Lead water lines were common for decades, until studies determined that lead is a human health hazard, and most uses were banned, including in paint and water lines.
“We used to have a lot of lead water lines,” Templin said. “But I’ve been assured we have none of them left (in the city’s system). But some homeowners might still have them from the meter to the house.”
That number could be minimal in Rocky Top, because when lead pipes were popular, they were more expensive than copper, and generally were limited to affluent areas – which Rocky Top is not, he said.
“But the EPA is requiring us to do an inventory, which must be completed by October 2024,” Templin said. “We’re requesting that if customers know what kind of lines they have, they let us know.”
Otherwise, city workers will have to dig down to the water lines in people’s yards to determine whether the lines are made of lead, he said.
“It’s for your own good,” Templin said. “We need to know what your line is.”
Replacement of lead lines that run from the meter into homes will be the responsibility of the property owner, though, and not the city.
Templin said information about the inventory will be going out with customers’ water bills.