Washington collecting data on ALL water service lines

WASHINGTON — Municipal officials have opened a seven-question Google survey in hopes of collecting information on the water service lines for every address in the city of Washington.

The ambitious effort was prompted by guidelines from the DNR and Environmental Protection Agency in 2021, after President Joe Biden signed an executive order on his first day in office for rule revisions that would remove all lead pipes from water infrastructure, according to a memo sent to the city with an EPA letterhead.

That letter said the agency would “collaboratively work with local, state and federal partners to make rapid progress on President Biden’s vision to remove 100% of lead service lines, with a focus on prioritizing communities that are disproportionately impacted by lead contamination.”

The document said governments had a deadline of Oct. 16, 2024, to establish complete inventories of their water infrastructure materials, which it said would be “necessary to achieve 100% removal of lead service lines.”

Washington City Administrator Deanna McCusker said the data collection would be a big undertaking. While the city has data on most waterworks installed after 1980, it needs to verify those records while collecting the data of every older building.

“This is all-new info,” she said. “It doesn’t hurt, for sure, but if we weren’t being mandated by the DNR and EPA to get this information, it’s not something we would spend time on tracking, probably, just because we have other things to be doing.”

The city has attached a notice of the survey to recently sent utility bills, shared the information through community partners and posted it on municipal social media and websites. As the deadline gets closer, McCusker said the city would start taking a more direct approach to reach property owners who had not filled out surveys.

“Ultimately, depending on how much response we get from all this, we will have to keep bugging people,” she said. “Whether that’s calling people, emailing them, putting door hangers on doors, knocking on doors. Whatever it is, we have to come up with all of these addresses and know what their service line is.”

McCusker said survey-takers would need to identify their water line’s material based on which pipe runs from their basement water meter to the outside.

If participants have problems or questions identifying their line’s material, they can get help from the city by emailing questions and photos to service-line@washingtoniowa.gov or by calling 319-653-2764.

In the meantime, the city is working with other government entities to identify the materials used in its public infrastructure.

“If it’s copper coming out of the house, that’s great, but we also have to know what it is coming out of the main,” McCusker said. “We might be having to do some potholing to see what the line is from the main to the curb stop.”

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com