The Safe Drinking Water Act and lead-free plumbing
By Ron George, CIPE, CPD
President, Ron George Design & Consulting Services
The Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) is the principal federal law in the United States that ensures safe drinking water for the public. As a result of this Act of Congress, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is required to set standards for drinking water quality and oversee all states, local jurisdictions and water suppliers who are responsible for implementing these standards. The Safe Drinking Water Act applies to every public water system in the United States. There are currently more than 155,000 public water systems providing water to almost all Americans at some time in their lives. The Safe Drinking Water Act does not cover private wells, or bottled water as those drinking water sources are covered by other federal agencies and industry standards.
The Safe Drinking Water Act requires the Environmental Protection Agency to establish National Primary Drinking Water Regulations (NPDWRs) for contaminants that may cause adverse public health effects. The Environmental Protection Agency regulations include both mandatory maximum levels (Maximum Contaminant Levels, or MCLs) and non-enforceable health related maximum goals (Maximum Contaminant Level Goals, or MCLGs) for each included contaminant.
‘Lead-Free’ plumbing requirements
The 1986 amendments required the Environmental Protection Agency to set standards limiting the concentration of lead in public water systems, and defines “lead-free” pipes as:
(1) solders and flux containing not more than 0.2 percent lead;
(2) pipes and pipe fittings containing not more than 8.0 percent lead; and
(3) plumbing fittings and fixtures as defined in industry-developed voluntary standards (issued no later than August 6, 1997), or standards developed by EPA in lieu of voluntary standards.
The Environmental Protection Agency issued a lead and copper regulation in 1991.
Maximum contaminant levels
Maximum contaminant levels are standards that are set by the United States Environmental Protection Agency for drinking water quality in Title 40 of the Code of Federal Regulations. A Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) is the legal threshold limit on the amount of a hazardous substance that is allowed in drinking water under the Safe Drinking Water Act. The limit is usually expressed as a concentration in milligrams or micrograms per liter of water.
To set a Maximum Contaminant Level for a contaminant, EPA first determines how much of the contaminant may be present with no adverse health effects. This level is called the Maximum Contaminant Level Goal (MCLG). The Maximum Contaminant Level Goal is a non-enforceable public health goal. The legally enforced Maximum Contaminant Level is set as close as possible to the Maximum Contaminant Level Goal. The Maximum Contaminant Level for a contaminant may be higher than the Maximum Contaminant Level Goal because of difficulties in measuring small quantities of a given contaminant, a lack of available treatment technologies, or if EPA determines that the costs of treatment would outweigh the public health benefits of a lower Maximum Contaminant Level.
If the EPA determines the cost of a treatment method is too high for the public health benefit, the EPA will set the Maximum Contaminant Level to balance the cost of treatment with the public health benefits.
For some contaminants, EPA establishes a Treatment Technique (TT) instead of a Maximum Contaminant Level. Treatment Techniques are enforceable procedures that drinking water systems must follow in treating their water for a contaminant.
Maximum Contaminant Levels and Treatment Techniques are known jointly as National Primary Drinking Water Regulations (NPDWRs), or primary standards.
Some contaminants may cause aesthetic problems with drinking water, such as the presence of unpleasant tastes or odors, or cosmetic problems, such as tooth discoloration. Since these contaminants do not cause health problems, there are no legally enforceable limits on their presence in drinking water. However, the Environmental Protection Agency recommends maximum levels of these contaminants in drinking water. These recommendations are called National Secondary Drinking Water Regulations (NSDWRs), or secondary standards.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that approximately only 20 percent of human exposure to lead is attributable to lead in drinking water. Eighty percent of lead exposure comes from other sources such as lead-based paint dust, or lead-based paint chips and lead in the ground in urban areas near roadways from many years of burning leaded gasoline.
Lead and Copper Rule
Lead and copper enter drinking water primarily through plumbing materials. Exposure to lead and copper may cause health problems ranging from stomach distress to brain damage. On June 7, 1991, the Environmental Protection Agency published a new regulation to control lead and copper in drinking water. This regulation is known as the Lead and Copper Rule (also referred to as the LCR or the EPA 1991 Rule).
In 1991, the Environmental Protection Agency’s rule on lead and copper was intended to minimize lead and copper in drinking water. The rule replaced the previous standard of 50 parts per billion, measured at the entry point to the distribution system. The rule established a maximum contaminant level goal (MCLG) of zero for lead in drinking water and a treatment technique to reduce corrosion within the distribution system. The treatment technique for the rule requires systems to monitor drinking water at customer taps. If lead concentrations exceed an action level of 15 ppb or copper concentrations exceed an action level of 1.3 ppm in more than 10% of customer taps sampled, the system must undertake a number of additional actions to control the corrosion of the piping systems, which leach the contaminates. If the action level for lead is exceeded, the system also must inform the public about steps they should take to protect their health and the utility in many cases may have to replace lead service lines under their control or issue recommendations for customers to replace service lines under customer control. Replacing lead water mains could be very expensive so many utilities have learned to take water samples from newer areas of the water system in order to comply with the low lead levels in the 10 percent of the sources sampled. Water utilities also know to flush the system prior to taking the water samples.
Lead in water systems history
In 2000, the EPA published revisions to the Lead and Copper Rule to address implementation problems and issues arising from legal challenges to the 1991 rule. The revisions also streamlined and reduced monitoring and reporting burden.
In 2004, the EPA published minor corrections to the Lead and Copper Rule to reinstate text that was inadvertently dropped from the rule during previous revisions.
In October 10, 2007 EPA published final revisions to the Lead and Copper Rule.
In 2009, the California Legislature passed a Bill effective July 1, 2010 AB 1953 requiring further reduction in lead levels in all plumbing products.
Lead is a dense metal found in natural deposits in the ground and is commonly used in household plumbing materials and water service lines. The greatest exposure to lead is swallowing or breathing in lead paint chips and dust and from being exposed to lead contaminated soil in urban areas. Recently many products imported from Asian countries have tested with high lead content in the paint and coatings.
The EPA says lead exposure including lead in drinking water also can cause a variety of adverse health effects. In babies and children, exposure to lead in drinking water above the action level can result in delays in physical and mental development, along with slight deficits in attention span and learning abilities. In adults, it can cause increases in blood pressure. Adults who drink this water over many years could develop kidney problems or high blood pressure.
According to the EPA lead is rarely found in source water, but enters tap water through corrosion of plumbing materials. Homes built before 1986 are more likely to have lead pipes, traces of lead content in cast brass faucets and lead based solder.
However, new homes built since 1986 also can have trace amounts of lead are also at risk: even legally “lead-free” plumbing may contain up to eight percent lead. The most common problem is with brass or chrome-plated brass faucets and fixtures, which can leach significant amounts of cast iron water mains and lead soldered joints in copper pipes throughout the public water supply system. The original California situation targeted lead levels in faucets only. At the time of the original legislation there were not instruments that could measure to the levels mandated in the legislation.
NSF 61 Standard
The National Sanitation Foundation (NSF) is in the process of developing a separate standard which will be independent from the NSF 61 — Annex G to address a method of certifying products on their lead content of water contact surfaces. NSF has been offering certification to Annex G of NSF 61 to manufacturers of products that contact drinking water, including faucets, flexible plumbing connectors, valves, meters and many other plumbing products. NSF has a long history of testing lead content in plumbing products. They have been actively involved in this issue since 1996, when Section 1417 of the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), the main federal law that ensures the quality of Americans’ drinking water, was amended to require endpoint devices (faucets) which dispense drinking water to comply with the lead leach requirements of the American National Standard, NSF/ANSI Standard 61.
After California passed AB 1953 in 2006, it provided a requirement but no means for complying with the new law. Lead testing methods still needed to be developed. The NSF Standard 61 Joint Committee then charged its Lead Task Group with reviewing and developing criteria that would meet AB 1953 requirements. The NSF Lead Task Group received guidance from key regulators, proponents of the California lead bill, and industry representatives, in addition to the NSF Standard 61 Joint Committee (a group comprised of equal representation from public health, user communities, and industry).
The resulting document was NSF/ANSI Standard 61, Annex G. The document was voted on by the Standard 61 Joint Committee, approved by the NSF Council of Public Health Consultants and published in late 2008. Now the committee is working on the stand alone document to certify products as lead free. The new standard will reportedly allow compliance with the less-than or equal-to 0.25 percent maximum weighted average lead content requirements.
NSF 61 — Annex “G” overview
NSF/ANSI Standard 61 was revised in December 2008 to establish requirements for use when a 0.25% lead content requirement needs to be met in addition to current chemical extraction requirements of the standard. The requirements were placed in Annex G, titled:
Weighted Average Lead Content Evaluation Procedure to a 0.25% Lead Requirement.
In the document, mandatory language placing restrictions on the use of lead as an intentional additive in water contact materials was also added.
A request was made to add the following requirements to the standard to allow manufacturers the option of being certified to a lead content standard, such as California's Health & Safety Code (Section 116875) commonly known as AB 1953. A similar law has been enacted in Vermont and is also to take effect January 1, 2010.
The NSF 61 — annex G was developed through the Lead Task Group of the Drinking Water Additives Joint Committee and includes requirements that enable conservative and consistent application of the lead content evaluation procedure. The document includes:
1. The annex contains <0.25% weighted average lead content requirements.
2. Compliance is determined by a weighted average calculation involving the maximum percent lead content of material specifications and wetted surface areas.
3. Does not consider coatings or acid washing.
4. Compliance is determined by the maximum percent lead content of material specification for each component prior to application of any coatings or lead wash treatments.
Lead content of water contact surfaces in NSF 61 — Annex “G”
The lead content of the material specification used to produce wetted components shall be used to determine compliance with this standard. For lead contents of materials that are provided as a range, the maximum content of the range shall be used.
Use of Liners: When lead-bearing surfaces have been excluded from water contact by use of a rigid liner (e.g. plastic sleeve) sealed with a permanent barrier, the lead content of the liner shall be used.
Use of coatings: When coatings are used, the lead content of the coated substrate shall be used in the calculation of weighted average lead content.
Use of lead-removal technologies: For components where the wetted surface areas have been treated with a lead removal technology, the percent lead composition shall be based on the material used to manufacture the component prior to application of the surface treatment.
For internally threaded products, the wetted surface area includes 25 percent of the threaded area(s). This is consistent with the assumptions used in the rest of Standard 61.
NSF 61 — Annex G does not contain a verification test protocol at this time as compliance is determined based on calculations using the maximum percent lead content of material specification. A verification test methodology is under development for addition to Standard 61 that can be used when a there is a need or desire to verify that the actual lead content of a component is within the stated lead content of the material specification. The work being done on this verification methodology is being performed through the NSF Lead Task Group and California's Department of Toxic Substance Control (DTSC) to establish a consistent protocol that can be used by all.
Annex “G” is an optional annex under NSF/ANSI 61 standard and is not mandatory. Certifications to Annex “G” note compliance within the NSF/ANSI 61 or NSF/ANSI 14 listing.
ASSE testing and evaluation of lead content certification
The American Society of Sanitary Engineering (ASSE) is considering an addendum to the Seal Listing Program to add a certification to the product during the product certification testing that the product complies with the low lead requirements. We should know more about this after their next board meeting in April.
ASSE testing/evaluation of lead content in plumbing products
The ASSE report will be required to be completed by an ASSE Listed Testing Laboratory. A list of these laboratories may be found on ASSE’s website at www.asse-plumbing.org. The purpose of the testing and evaluation report is to evaluate the lead content of a model or series of models for a given manufacturer.
Those manufacturers desiring a lead content certification at the time of the original listing with ASSE shall have the laboratory forward their report along with a Laboratory Evaluation Report form to a product performance standard to ASSE.
Those manufacturers desiring a lead content certification for a current listed product shall have the laboratory forward their report to ASSE and shall request a modification review of their currently listed product as outlined in Section 10 of the ASSE Seal Control Board Procedures. The test report will show the models that have been reviewed by an independent testing agency and the ASSE Seal Control Board and have been determined to have a lead content of less than or equal to 0.25 percent.
To contact Ron, e-mail: rgdc@rongeorgedesign.com. Web site: www.rongeorgedesign.com.