Maker Will Phase Out Water Meters With Lead

As part of a decade-long effort to get lead out of drinking water in California, a major manufacturer of water meters sold in Glendale and Pasadena has agreed to stop marketing meters that release lead into tap water in excess of the state’s legal limit.

The agreement involves ABB Water Meters Inc. of Ocala, Fla., which supplies meters to water districts in the San Francisco Bay Area in addition to the two Southern California cities.

Under terms of the settlement that becomes official today, ABB will have 90 days to stop selling its old meters and replace its California inventory with new products that are virtually lead-free. The new meters will be more expensive, company officials said.

The settlement does not require the company to replace water meters now in place, said Jim Wheaton, president of the Environmental Law Foundation. Typically, water meters are left in place for 12 years or longer, Wheaton said.

The companies responsible for the bulk of the meters sold in California, so far, have not agreed to settle, said Wheaton. Prolonged exposure to lead can cause cancer and birth defects as well as learning disabilities in children and damage to the reproductive systems of men and women.

The settlement grew out of a lawsuit brought by Wheaton’s group and the Natural Resources Defense Council against ABB and five other companies. The lawsuit contends that, up to now, water meters sold in California have leached lead from 50 to several hundred times the maximum safe limit of 0.5 parts per billion set by state law, Wheaton said.

He added that the lead released by the meters also exceeds a more lenient national standard, used in 41 states and developed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Although ABB bills itself as the world’s largest maker of water meters and the fourth-largest in the United States, its California market share is relatively small, covering just 30,000 of the several hundred thousand used throughout the state.

An ABB executive said Tuesday that with the settlement the company hopes to expand its market.

According to John Corey, a vice president of the firm, ABB has begun promoting itself in trade publications as “a leader in bringing environmentally friendly water meter products to California.”

The lawsuit over water meters is part of a series of cases involving lead in plumbing fixtures. In 1994, a case brought by the same environmental groups along with state officials led to settlements in which the makers of indoor water faucets in California agreed to changes designed to stop lead from leaching from the faucets into tap water.

Two other cases against plumbing supply manufacturers led to 1995 settlements in which companies agreed to stop selling well water pumps and water fountains that allowed lead to seep into drinking water.

Fines from settlements have helped finance a study now underway to determine if any other plumbing components contribute to lead in the state’s drinking water.

Wheaton said that people concerned about lead levels in their tap water can call the Environmental Law Center at (510) 208-4557 for information on how to test tap water for lead content.