Let faucets run, water official urges

Durham residents warned of risk of lead contamination in drinking water

DURHAM -- Durham's water management director on Monday urged city residents to run their faucets at least three minutes before using tap water for drinking or cooking due to an increased risk of lead contamination.

In recent city testing of the homes considered most at risk, those built between the early and mid-1980s, 44 percent had lead in the water above the federal safety limit of 15 parts per billion, according to a new city report. Lead was banned from use in the solder used to join copper pipes in 1985.

Speaking at a City Council meeting Monday night, water director Terry Rolan stressed that the lead wasn't coming from the treatment plants or distribution system he oversees.

However, Rolan did acknowledge that the city's use of a chemical, ferric chloride, in its treatment process may have made the water supply more corrosive -- leading to the increased leaching of lead from old solder and plumbing fixtures. In most cases, running the tap when it has gone unused for six or more hours flushes out tainted water.

Ferric chloride had been used since January 2003 at the Brown Water Treatment Plant, which provides about two-thirds of Durham's water. The city ceased using the chemical July 6.

"Questions have been raised about our treatment process," Rolan said. "All that data is still inconclusive in our minds. We're not to the end of the road in determining what's going on, but we're going to get to the bottom of this."

It was the first time Rolan, the current president of the American Water Works Association, had spoken about the problem at a public forum. Durham officials have consistently sought to downplay the risk to public health since news broke in mid-May that a child was poisoned after drinking the lead-laced water in his family's South Durham apartment.

Of the 131 first-draw water samples from Durham homes tested for lead at the city lab since June 14, about 16 percent have tested positive for lead above the federal limit.

Pattern shows itself

But when the results are analyzed according to the age of the homes, a pattern emerged. Among the 34 homes tested that were built between 1982 and 1985, 44 percent tested positive for high lead. Of the homes built since 1986, none had lead above the federal limit.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency requires that every three years cities and other water suppliers test 50 homes built in the first half of the 1980s, just before the ban on lead solder took effect, to prove that their product is safe. The quality of the water leaving the treatment plant is irrelevant under the federal rules, which hold cities accountable based on what's in the water that flows out the selected household taps.

A city can test positive for lead above the safety limit in up to 10 percent of the sampled homes and still receive federal certification, a standard many public health advocates have long derided as too weak. Durham has always passed the tests, last conducted here in 2004. But the new results suggest that if the compliance exam were done now, Durham would likely fail.

State officials are conducting a broad study of water samples from Durham homes, and the city has agreed to move up its EPA-required testing to this September -- one year ahead of schedule.

Mayoral response

After Rolan spoke at Monday's meeting, Mayor Bill Bell responded to a July 21 article in The News & Observer that disclosed he had the tap water at his home tested on two separate occasions, even as city officials publicly minimized the risk. Bell said his home was built in 1984 and he called the city to have his water tested -- just as any Durham resident can.

"I didn't tell them I was the mayor or anything," Bell said, though he would have given his name and address as part of the request.

As reported in the story, Bell bought a new refrigerator equipped with a water filtration system just after a sample from his home tested positive for lead at a level just below the federal limit.

On Monday, Bell clarified that he had not bought the new refrigerator for any other reason than his old one was worn out. The timing of the purchase was a coincidence, he said.