Lead Checks in Tap Water a Tough Task for Suppliers : Health: Utilities face the challenge of getting homeowners to cooperate, especially since the samples have to be collected inside homes, not at the source.

Faced with testing water quality in people’s kitchens and bathrooms for the first time, Southern California utilities are struggling with the challenge of collecting samples of tap water from thousands of households so they can be checked for lead contamination.

In a novel national program, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced last week that it is requiring water suppliers to monitor the dangerous metal at household taps and limit the contamination. Lead is especially risky to children, who can suffer brain damage and other serious health problems if exposed to high concentrations, and pregnant women.

Water managers in Orange County and throughout Southern California are split on the issue: Some believe lead can pose such a severe health threat that it warrants intruding in homes for the testing, while others say it is less of a threat in Southern California than in much of the nation.

“From a public health standpoint, I believe it makes sense to monitor for lead, but it does pose a logistical problem,” said Jack Foley, general manager of the Moulton Niguel Water District, which serves parts of Mission Viejo, Dana Point and nearby areas.

Water must be monitored for lead inside homes, instead of at its source, because it often leaches from household plumbing, which can contain lead pipes or solders, EPA officials said.

“It’s an innovative standard, and that’s because of the nature of lead contamination. It’s not like other contaminants that are a problem in source water,” said EPA spokesman Sean McElheny.

Some water officials expressed concerns about the liability of being held responsible for contamination that comes from a home’s plumbing. They also worry that customers will lose faith in water quality if a tester shows up at their door.

“We are being asked to assume greater responsibility than we have ever had before. Our responsibility traditionally ends at the meter, but this changes all that,” said Lee Harry, water resources manager for the city of Santa Ana.

Some even wonder how they can require homeowners to cooperate.

“Right now, I don’t know how we are going to handle it,” said Harlan Schroth, general manager of the El Toro Water District, which serves the El Toro and Laguna Hills area. “It would be an invasion of privacy. We don’t have any right to go inside their property and I don’t know if the law gives us that right.”

Despite the complications, the nation’s largest water agency, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, endorses the testing requirements.

“Lead is an important public health issue,” said Ed Means, water-quality director for Metropolitan, which supplies imported water to six counties, “and the bottom line is we’re in the business of protecting public health. The monitoring is workable in our view.”

The EPA’s McElheny said the homes that will be selected for the semiannual tests are considered “high-risk” ones, mostly those with plumbing systems installed between 1982 and 1988.

Older plumbing systems are considered safer because over years of use, pipes and solders are covered with a protective coating that builds up so that less lead rubs off. Newer ones are less risky because lead soldering was banned beginning in 1988.

Southern California has less of a lead problem than most of the nation because it has few lead water-delivery lines, which are usually found in older cities in the Midwest and Northeast, water-quality officials said.

The area also has hard water, which tends to cause less corrosion of lead solders in plumbing. Most water agencies also adjust the acidity of water so that it is less corrosive.

The new regulation is so controversial that members of the Assn. of California Water Agencies debated for almost an hour Thursday whether to sue the EPA to try to block it. The group, which represents many of California’s water providers, couldn’t reach a decision, so it was referred to committees for study.

Most of Southern California’s 140 water agencies must start monitoring taps by Jan. 1 under the new EPA rule. Every supplier serving more than 50,000 people is required to sample 100 taps every six months and most of the region’s water districts fall within that category.

In Southern California, about 14,000 households would have to be sampled twice a year, with about 3,000 in Orange County alone.

The samples must be taken from taps that have been turned off at least six hours. The utilities can send workers in to take the 1-liter samples or give their customers bottles to collect them, although letting residents do it can cause problems in obtaining valid samples.

“I suppose we could provide them with containers and instructions as to how to collect the samples, but I wouldn’t want to guarantee the results,” Schroth said.

Under EPA’s new safety standard, lead is limited to 15 parts per billion in water. If more than 10% of taps sampled by a utility exceed that limit, suppliers must reduce corrosion by adding chemicals to the water supply. In cases where that fails, lead service lines will eventually have to be replaced.

Lead levels in some Southern California homes have been found to be as high as 32 p.p.b., but most water agencies have done no testing at taps, according to the Metropolitan Water District.

When the Irvine Ranch Water District sampled about 25 sites in Irvine two years ago, it found only one high lead reading, and that was in a new elementary school where a contractor had illegally used lead soldering,

The cost to Southern Californians could reach $20 million--more than $1 per person--if corrosion-inhibiting controls are needed at all five of Metropolitan Water District’s treatment plants that serve Southern California, Means said.

Lead control has been one of the most contentious water-quality issues the EPA has faced.

Environmental groups and some members of Congress say the new regulations will take too long, leaving children and others unprotected for years. The largest utilities have two years to start corrosion control, plus as many as 15 additional years to replace lead service pipes if necessary.

Congress told the EPA to adopt more stringent lead standards by 1989, but the new rule wasn’t produced until Tuesday.

Tips to Minimize Exposure to Lead From Water in Home

Tips from the Metropolitan Water District to minimize exposure to lead in drinking water:

* When faucets have not been used for several hours, allow the water to run for about 30 seconds before drinking. (Because of the drought, capture the flow for watering plants.)

* When drawing water for cooking, use the cold water tap. Cold water is less likely to leach lead from solders. Avoid using hot water for baby formula.

* If plumbing is repaired, make sure that contractors use lead-free solder. Lead solder (banned since 1988 but still used illegally by some contractors) has a dull gray finish and is soft enough to cut with a knife. Lead-free solders have a shiny, silver finish.

* Be aware that water softened with a home unit has a higher chance of causing lead to leach from solders.

For free booklets, call the Metropolitan Water District at 1-800-CALLMWD.

Want to know the lead content of your household’s water? You can hire a laboratory to test it. Cost per sample ranges from $7 to $60. For names of state-certified laboratories, including several in Orange County, call (800) CALLMWD.