Iowa utilities are mailing notices to homeowners to replace lead pipes

(This story was updated to add new information.)

Late last year, Iowa City resident Nathan Shepherd returned home after the holidays to discover the service line for his house had burst and was sending water running down his street.

Digging up the line, workers discovered it was a pipe that contained lead, one of about 2,900 the city will ask residents to replace under a federal rule finalized this month.

Shepherd says he’s lucky the city had begun a program to help residents replace lead service lines, covering half the cost up to $5,000. The price “was a shocker,” he says, with the final bill reaching over $10,000, given the length of his service line. “It’s a really big-ticket item.”

About 330,000 Iowa homeowners are expected to get notices over the next month, saying they may have lead drinking water service lines that should be replaced, based on the most recent U.S. Environmental Protection Agency survey of community water suppliers.

Des Moines Water Works says it will send notices to about 55,400 homeowners, informing more than 8,000 that their service lines are lead, says Des Moines Water Works CEO Ted Corrigan. The utility will tell most — about 47,300 — that it is unsure what their service lines are made of.

It will then spend months working with residents to determine how many of those lines contain lead — a process that is expected to bring the roll of customers with lead lines to 20,000.

Nationwide, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency wants utilities to replace about 9 million lead lines over the next decade. The rule is intended to protect communities from the kind of lead exposure that sparked a health crisis for 100,000 residents in Flint, Michigan, a decade ago.

Pipes leaching lead can endanger residents’ health, especially that of children.

“We have to first figure out how big the problem is," says Troy DeJoode, executive director of the Iowa Association of Municipal Utilities. "Then we have to figure out how it gets paid for and by whom.”

Statewide, utilities could see a roughly $835 million gap between the cost of replacing the state's estimated 100,000 lead lines and the federal funding available for the work, an advocacy group says. Des Moines Water Works, Iowa's largest water utility, could see a $155 million shortfall, based on preliminary estimates.

Rates would have to dramatically increase if it were to cover all of the difference, Corrigan says.

“We think it’s a good idea. It needs to be done. And the EPA is mandating it,” he says, but he added that the only way to cover the bill, for now, is a combination of federal dollars, rate increases and homeowners paying part of the cost.

“That's kind of the hard truth of this thing,” he says.

Corrigan and other utility officials plan to ask Iowa lawmakers in next year's legislative session to provide $50 million over a decade through the Rebuild Iowa Infrastructure Fund to help low-income residents cover the costs.

The Des Moines utility also won a $1.4 million federal earmark to help residents facing line replacement costs next year.

“We're doing a lot of different things to try to figure out how we're going to accomplish this,” Corrigan says.

Nearly 1,200 cities, towns, schools, child-care centers, businesses and other independent water systems were required to report the number of lead service lines in their areas to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources by mid-October.

About 40 of the state’s water suppliers failed to meet that deadline, says Heidi Cline, the DNR’s drinking water program coordinator. The state and the Iowa Association of Municipal Utilities have been working to help communities fulfill the requirement, which also calls for making the information available to residents, say Cline and DeJoode, whose group represents about 500 Iowa cities and towns.

The vast majority are "making good-faith efforts to complete the inventories, but that's a pretty big job," DeJoode says, especially since communities typically don't have records of home service line installations.

Experts warn that lead poisoning puts adults at risk for cardiovascular and liver diseases, high blood pressure and other health problems. And it’s especially dangerous for children, who can suffer neurological damage, leading to decreased IQ, learning disabilities and behavioral problems, among other issues.

Thousands of Flint residents suffered physical and mental health problems after the bankrupt city switched water sources in 2014, then failed to appropriately treat the more caustic water drawn from the new source. As a result, it leached lead and other contaminants from pipes.

In Iowa, officials stress that utilities treat water to control corrosion, and water suppliers are required to regularly test for lead. But the DNR cautions that lead could seep into water via lead-containing pipes, joints and fixtures after it leaves treatment plants.

The EPA is giving cities and towns three years to begin implementing decade-long lead pipe identification and replacement programs and is making $28.6 billion available nationally, with $15 billion specifically earmarked for the work.

Iowa will get $37.4 million this year, with an opportunity to obtain more, the EPA says. About half of the federal money must go to disadvantaged communities as grants, according to the rule.

Corrigan says that to qualify, neighborhoods must meet EPA criteria, which include income and other factors. Des Moines and the rest of Iowa will have "more qualifying census tracts than there is federal funding," he says.

The utility is working with U.S. Rep. Zach Nunn, a Republican whose district includes much of the Des Moines metro, on legislation that would make all the federal funding forgivable, Corrigan says.

Implementing the federal rule is fraught with complications, DeJoode and others say.

Most Iowa utilities don't own the service lines that run to houses from water mains under streets, although a few own part of the lines, DeJoode says.

“There’s talk about the utilities being required to pay for that replacement, but I’m not exactly sure how any of that will necessarily work” since it’s private property, he says. “There's just a lot of confusion.”

In Des Moines, homeowners own their entire service lines, Corrigan says, and Des Moines Water Works “cannot compel a property owner to replace their lead service line.”

In fact, the utility is unable to enter a home to check to see if the service line is lead unless it receives the homeowner’s permission. In the notices to residents, the utility is asking customers to complete a survey that will help determine if their lines are lead.

Homes built before 1950 are more likely to have service lines that are lead or galvanized steel or iron, which also should be replaced.

“About all that we were able to eliminate were homes built after 1986, when lead service lines were basically prohibited nationwide,” Corrigan says. “There are a lot of questions still to be answered."

In Iowa City, residents are required to replace — rather than repair — lead service lines that leak or break, says Jonathan Durst, the city’s water superintendent.

The city adopted the repair ban understanding that homeowners would be more inclined to pay $1,000 to repair a line than the more than $10,000 cost to replace it “regardless of the health consequences,” Durst says.

To help mitigate the costs, the city also created a program to cover half the expense and works with a company that insures service lines for a monthly fee, he says. Several Iowa communities, including Des Moines, also participate in the pipe warranty program.

So far, Durst says, most homeowners banned from repairing lead lines have participated in the replacement program.

"The cost is pretty high," he says. "It's just a hard pill to swallow."

Corrigan says the Des Moines utility has run into difficulty getting residents to participate in lead pipe replacement, even with a pilot program that offered to do the job for free.

The utility reached out to about 300 people in the Riverbend and King Irving neighborhoods, hoping to get 100 participants. Only 87 were willing. The utility made multiple attempts to reach residents, including knocking on doors in the evening and providing translators.

Convincing homeowners to tackle water main replacement will be a big hurdle, Corrigan says. Under the rule, utilities are “compelled to do everything we can to make people aware of what the potential risks could be,” he says, including notifying homeowners annually of the threat.

Even with a home built in 1912, Shepherd, the Iowa City homeowner, says he was surprised to learn his service line contained lead.

"I thought I was pretty well informed," he says, but the buried line was “out of sight, out of mind.”

Shepherd says he also discovered replacement of his service line wasn't covered under his home insurance. He’s since signed up for the warranty service, which also provides coverage for sewer lines.

He says he understands homeowners will struggle with the costs. The city’s program to pick up half the bill was “a lifesaver,” he says.

“It's just a great example of government doing something that's really good for everyone, protecting our health … protecting the health of kids,” he says.

Donnelle Eller covers agriculture, the environment and energy for the Register. Reach her at [email protected] or 515-284-8457.

This story was updated to add a video.