North Dakota Cities Hunt For Hazardous Lead Water Pipes

(Photo by Michael Achterling/North Dakota Monitor)

(North Dakota Monitor) – North Dakota’s public water systems have spent several years creating vast inventories of their service lines in an effort to find pipes made of lead, which pose a health threat. Now, communities are beginning to use that information to replace both public and private lines.

Municipal and rural water systems across the country began mapping their service lines — pipes connecting buildings to water mains — after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency required them to begin that process in 2021.

Most of the nation’s lead and galvanized lines are concentrated in the older cities of the eastern United States, which were built before lead pipes were banned.

North Dakota is estimated to have fewer than 20,000 lead and galvanized lines, while neighboring Minnesota is estimated to have between 40,000 and 150,000, according to the EPA.