Towns fail to ‘get the lead out’ in starting survey
Staff writer
As far behind as Marion appears to be in preparing this year’s budget, it seems to be even further behind in completing a required survey about lead and copper pipes.
Hillsboro may not be much better off. It had a head start in completing part of the survey but still has not sent out customer surveys as required. Marion did so just last week.
Kansas Department of Health and Environment announced in January, 2022, that all water systems in the state must develop a complete inventory of materials used in lines serving all water customers and submit it to the state by Oct. 16, 2024.
Hillsboro did that with lines to residences and businesses when replaced water meters four years ago, City Administrator Matt Stiles said Tuesday.
It plans to send a survey to customers about water lines within their premises next week. Marion sent its survey Thursday. Other cities, however, sent surveys months if not years ago and still are awaiting complete results.
A year and a half after the requirement was announced, but exactly one year away from the deadline for submitting results, planning commission chairman Darvin Markley asked at a Marion City Council meeting Oct. 16, 2023, how the customer survey was progressing.
No answer was recorded in minutes for that meeting. However, a recording of the meeting indicates that the city was aware of the situation.
“That’s a big issue that they’re pushing,” City Administrator Brogan Jones told Markley.
Markley expressed concern that the city had learned of the requirement in March, 2022, but more than 1½ years later still hadn’t acted, as required, to survey homeowners.
City council member Zach Collett testily questioned him.
“I don’t know that that’s true,” he said. “You know that we haven’t acted on it?”
Markley responded: “You’ve got towns that have already been doing it for the last year and a half — sending out surveys to residents inquiring what kind of copper lines and lead pipes they have in their house. That has to get done, and nobody has done anything with it.”
No one replied. However, minutes for the following meeting state that Jones told council members on Oct. 30, 2023, that the city was “active on the lead and copper rule and would be sending surveys in upcoming bills.”
Ten months later, on Thursday of last week — in a separate mailing, not with utility bills — city residents finally received the survey.
It arrived just 54 days before the city must submit compiled results, requested 2½ years earlier, to the state.
The letter didn’t come from the city. It came from an outside consultant, Waterwise Enterprises of Oxford, Kansas, the hiring of which was never mentioned or approved during any city council meeting.
It is not known whether the firm was hired with a no-bid contract nor the amount of money the city has agreed to pay the firm. The city already pays more than $1,000 a month to a Wichita firm to mail its water bills.
Hillsboro’s similar survey will go out next week, Stiles said Tuesday.
“The goal is to collect all the surveys and do any personal follow-ups by the end of September,” he said.
However, both cities may be overly optimistic on how many residents will respond to their surveys.
Last-minute efforts in Marion County are in stark contrast to what some other Kansas cities have been doing with their water surveys.
In Abilene, for example, the first attempt at a survey — much like the one Marion fielded last week — came in March, 2023.
It yielded responses from only 19.1% of water customers, prompting the city to spring into action with additional initiatives.
An online initiative, with numerous illustrations and step-by-step guides to help customers identify pipe types, was posted in November, 2023. Online forms were posted in December, 2023, and more flyers were mailed as well.
Results still lagged — with just 31.4% responding — so in February, 2024, Abilene adopted what it called a “boots on the ground” initiative.
City employees began knocking on doors to help residents complete the survey. If no one answered, they left door hangers offering to come back and provide assistance.
Even with that effort, Abilene to date has received responses from only 58.6% of water customers.
To encourage participation, Abilene has been measuring its response rate on prominently posted “thermometer” like those used in fund drives.
The thermometer has goals for various dates: April 1, 2023; July 1, 2023; October 1, 2023; Jan. 1, 2024; April 1, 2024; and July 1, 2024.
Despite 18 months of effort, the city remains 41.7% short of meeting its goal even as Marion and Hillsboro are just beginning to make their initial efforts.
Under state rules, properties for which responses are not made will be assumed to have lead pipes, and the city’s percentage of homes with lead pipes will be adjusted accordingly.
That percentage will be publicly released, according to KDHE program rules, and is almost assured of finding its way onto websites that measure the supposed safety of cities’ water lines as a guide to prospective residents.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, lead can be present in tap water because of lead pipes, brass or chrome-plated faucets, galvanized pipes, and plumbing soldered with lead.
No safe level of lead exposure has been established. Lead in drinking water can lead to health problems even at minimal levels, CDC says, with infants particularly at risk.
Filters certified for that purpose may remove most lead at the tap. Boiling does not. Using hot tap water for cooking or for beverages dramatically increases risk, CDC says.