186,000 N.J. households are about to learn there’s lead in their drinking water pipes

New Jersey’s 570 community water systems, many operated by local municipalities, are sending out notices that could come as a shock to tens of thousands of households: Lead has been detected in the drinking water line running to your home.

And, if so, it will have to be dug up and replaced.

In all, 186,830 households, or about 6% of all households, will receive certified letters from their local water departments by Feb. 22 stating that a service line — the pipe that connects a water main in the street to a building — has been found to contain the metal that can cause serious health problems if too much is ingested. There is no safe level of lead.

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Shawn LaTourette, the state’s Department of Environmental Protection commissioner, said during a press briefing Thursday that the notices will likely cause concern but that residents should not panic. The notices apply to community water suppliers operated by municipalities, local authorities, and private companies.

However, just because a line has been associated with lead does not mean lead has leached into the drinking water. The lead could be in the line, household plumbing, or fixtures. Homes built before 1930 are more likely to have lead pipes. Those built before 1986, when lead was banned, could also have lead-soldered joints on copper piping. New Jersey has so many lead pipes because much of the state was developed before 1986.

The notices are part of a state law Gov. Phil Murphy signed in July requiring the water systems to make an inventory of lead pipes and replace them all within 10 years. There are also more than 1 million pipes in the state that are made of “unknown materials,” LaTourette said.

The service lines containing lead will have to be replaced from the main to the home. That could be expensive, LaTourette said, but the burden will be on the water system to figure out how to pay for it. In some cases, the water system might charge individual customers or spread the cost of replacing the lines among all customers.

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In many cases, water companies are replacing the lines as part of ongoing upgrades aimed not only at lead but galvanized steel lines.

Lead can be particularly harmful to children and can cause behavior and learning problems, lower IQ and hyperactivity, slowed growth, hearing problems, and anemia. It is also more dangerous for pregnant women.

Homeowners found to have lead lines should follow the instructions included in the letter from their provider. A sample letter shows 12 steps that are possible, with replacing the line, and any plumbing with lead such as solder or fittings, as No. 1.

Among the other steps:

The new state law requires water systems to forward their inventories of lead pipes to the DEP, with an update of those inventories each July. The DEP updated those inventories as of the end of January. The DEP has started mapping the inventory publicly online, with a link to find out more about your local water system. But it’s not complete because many water systems were still submitting inventory as of the Jan. 22 deadline and still needed to be vetted by the DEP.

So far, the map shows a large cluster in South Jersey, particularly Camden County, where communities tend to be older and long-established. But a chunk also exists among the older towns along the Delaware River in Burlington County and the northeastern part of Gloucester County. Some water systems have used an anticorrosive agent to prevent lead from leaching from pipes, but others did not.

Some systems had been testing for lead before the new law as part of their regular monitoring. But that monitoring looked only at system-wide issues, not for specific connections to homes. So the state has set up NJ Drinking Water Watch, a website for residents to find their provider and see what monitoring shows for lead and other compounds.

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All water systems are also required by the Environmental Protection Agency to file an annual Consumer Confidence Report that should be posted on their websites.

New Jersey American, for example, has posted a detailed section for lead on its website with an interactive map. It allows users to zoom in and see where New Jersey American’s lines stop and a homeowner’s begins.

After compiling their inventories, water systems are required to notify residents — and nonpaying consumers such as renters not responsible for paying a water bill — if they are served by a lead service line.

Some water systems will treat water to minimize pipe corrosion that could cause lead to leach out.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry has a good explainer on lead level standards, as does the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

“They are everywhere,” LaTourette said. “This is not exclusively an urban problem. ... The notifications are new, and they are going to be impossible to ignore for the law was set up that way.”

“There are going to be people throughout the state who are learning about this for the first time, and they may be scared,” he continued. “They may have a lot of questions.”

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LaTourette said he was reaching out now publicly “because we hope to not see that kind of panic ... and I think it’s a possibility that folks could panic, could be worried. Part of what we want to do is assure the public that we are on the job.”

He said New Jersey is at the forefront of dealing with lead pipes, as it is with tackling contamination by a group of chemicals known as PFAS, and should be able to tap money from the bipartisan infrastructure bill President Joe Biden signed into law in December.

Replacing lead pipes was a centerpiece of the law, which set aside $15 billion for the replacement of lead water lines. New Jersey is to receive $169 million of that to clean up drinking water contamination and improve the state’s water infrastructure.