In an effort to significantly lower the risk of exposure to lead and copper in our nation’s drinking water, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) required all Water Districts to perform a Lead Service Line Inventory and submit results no later than October 16, 2024.
As per the above diagram, two parts of the Service Line were required to be assessed:
- Utility-Owned: the line that runs from our water main to your water meter
- Customer-Owned: the line that runs from the water meter to your home
Because North City Water District has never used lead in our service lines from the water main to the meter, the goal of our inventory was to confirm this fact, while focusing on the Customer-Owned portion of water lines.
We began by building a database of every property in our service area (roughly 8,300 accounts) that included the date when the water line was connected, and categorizing any connections installed after King County banned the use of lead service lines in the mid 1960s as “non-lead.”
Postcard sent out to alert residences that required a physical water line inspection at the meter box
From there, we combed through historical contracts, design standards, and the King County Plumbing code—all the way back to when our first water mains were installed in 1936—to identify if lead was ever allowed in the Customer-Owned side of the system prior to the ban. We also ran a voluntary customer survey to find out if customers had ever replaced their water line, or were willing to check their own pipes.
For the remaining unknown service lines, we used the EPA’s approved statistical analysis method to randomly select addresses for physical inspection, then doubled the number of inspections to have that information for our Geographic Information System (GIS) database.
Physical inspections were performed by observing the Customer-Owned line where it connected to the meter box; with exception to 18 services that require a separate work order to resolve specific issues that prevented us from accessing the pipe.
The most important news: NO lead water service lines were found in our system—both on the District’s side, and the Customer’s side.
View the results of our water service inventory by clicking on your service location:
** Note** North City Water District is not affiliated with the City of Shoreline; our customers are located primarily on the east side of I-5, and in some portions of Lake Forest Park. If you do not see your address in these documents, check your water bill to find out who your water service provider is, and visit their website to view your results.