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The short answer is that utility companies are trying to take the lead. This is a medium-scale answer.

It may not be the best feeling to ask the local water company to send the Brita water filter to your home to filter out lead. As part of the lead reduction program, Denver Water has sent them to more than 100,000 homes around the city, one of which you may live in, and the program is designed to do exactly what it sounds like.

Denver Water's heavier upgrades include replacing tons of lead pipes around the city with copper pipes to reduce the chance of drinking leaded water. This huge undertaking will take 15 years.

Judging from the number of questions we received about the lead reduction program, these things sound terrible to some of you! Hope this guide on the state of drinking water in the city and how Denver Water is working to improve it will be helpful to you. These answers are compiled from interviews with Denver Water Company spokesperson Jose Salas and Bruce Lanfil, professor of environmental neurotoxins at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia.

To be sure, you can apply for a free lead test from Denver Water. You can also insert your address into this map to see if the utility company has confirmed or suspected that you have a main service line.

According to the Denver Water Company's 2020 Water Quality Report, in a sample size of 1,367 locations, approximately 5% of households tested positive for lead with a lead content of more than 15 ppb. This is the threshold set by the Environmental Protection Agency and should trigger action. However, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency, this threshold is not a health standard because there is no safe lead content.

The water in Denver Public Schools still contains lead. No one needs to do anything about it.

Lanphear told Denverite that the EPA threshold is arbitrary, and ideally, no one should drink water with a lead content of more than 5 parts per billion in the short term. He said that the ultimate goal should be less than 1 ppb.

Extensive metal exposure is related to cognitive problems in children and infants. According to a 2016 report from the American Academy of Pediatrics, it will lower their IQ.

According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, pregnant women are at increased risk of miscarriage, and their babies may have problems with their brains, kidneys and nervous system.

The Denver Water Company quickly stated that when the water leaves its facility, it does not contain lead, and that the water pipes — the huge underground pipes that carry water — are also lead-free. But thousands of smaller pipes (called service lines) that connect water pipes to your home are still made of lead, which means trace amounts of toxic metals may enter your drinking water.

The owner-not the water company-owns the service line. Old household pipes and faucets manufactured before 2014 will also discharge lead into the water.

a lot of. Denver Water has a huge 15-year plan to gain a leading position. First, the utility company sent more than 100,000 Brita pitchers and filters to households that may have lead service lines. Denver Water will provide a replacement filter every six months until you replace your pipeline.

The utility also increases the pH of our water to reduce the corrosiveness of the liquid to the pipeline.

The heaviest elevator is replacing as many as 84,000 service lines in the city. Denver Water is in the second year of its 15-year plan. In the first year, the company replaced approximately 5,200 production lines.

Drinkers (all of us) can follow the progress through this online dashboard.

Salas said the company is using an algorithm to calculate the concentration of babies and children most vulnerable to lead poisoning; the likelihood of lead pipes — houses built before 1951 are most likely to have them — and historical underserved Community. Denver Water focused on schools and childcare centers last year.

Lanphear is critical of how local and national governments deal with lead in our water. He said Denver is very proactive.

But the repair is not random. Denver Water’s plan was approved by the EPA. It was proposed a year after 2012 when the lead content was abnormally high and exceeded the EPA threshold. Lanphear considers this to be arbitrary because there is no safe level of lead ingested by people.

Salas said that partial replacement is possible, but "Denver Water staff will do their best to ensure that all customers in our system are taken care of and provide the opportunity to ensure that this happens by verifying that their service lines are correct and completely replaced. ."

Hope not! Salas said the workers would leave people after they found their yards. For example, workers may have to move the water meter to do so, or it may take longer to dig around tree roots.

Denver Water spent approximately $7.4 million on Brita pitchers and filters in the first year, but the overall lead reduction program is estimated to be $580 million in 15 years.

Utilities sell bonds to pay for the plan, but customers pay for the program by raising rates, water sales, and water and electricity sales. Denver Water is keen to point out that the replacement of lead service lines will cost customers approximately $10,000 to replace, but customers will not receive a $10,000 bill.

Yes, this is Denver, and you are one mile tall.

This article has been updated to clarify that if the owner has recently replaced the lead pipe himself, the pipe can be partially replaced. 

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