MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — The Morgantown Utility Board has sent about 20,000 notifications to customers as part of the annual Water Service Line Inventory required by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Morgantown Utility Board Engineering Technician and manager of the Lead & Copper Program, Michael Kendall, said the inventory is mandatory and has not been triggered by any other condition.
“Every system in the country has to be inventoried,” Kendall said. “Whether it’s system-owned, the side that we own, or the side owned by the customer, we have to invest in both.”
Customers are asked to declare if they know if the service is copper, plastic, galvanized steel, or unknown. Customers who have not received the letter may have completed the inventory in the past, and the material the service is made from has been identified.
“We have a survey online; that’s the best way, or they can mail in the letter we sent out with the survey,” Kendall said. “Either of those options is what we want, but if they can’t fill out the survey, they can call and tell us what they have.”
Lead exposure can cause long-term negative health impacts for adults and can have serious consequences for children. Lead poisoning can cause serious damage to the central nervous system, hamper brain development, and, in extended high concentrations, can cause convulsions, coma, or even death.
“We want to eliminate lead service lines; that’s it if they’re out there,” Kendall said. “We are unaware of any, so we want people to fill out the survey so we can be aware of it, and if funding becomes available, there could possibly be replacements or things like that for them.”
On most properties, MUB owns the lines from the meter to the main, and the homeowner is responsible for the line from the outside of the home to the meter. In the event work is completed, the homeowner is responsible for the cost of work between the outside and the interior.
“We take the cost of replacing any service line that’s on our side,” Kendall said. “As far as the customer-owned service, that’s their property, and if they want to spend the money to replace that, they can.”