43
No lead, copper found in MVSD water supplies
YOUNGSTOWN
Although there are plenty of lead and copper pipes throughout the Mahoning Valley, neither element has been found in tap water for years, said the chief engineer of the Mahoning Valley Sanitary District, which operates the area’s main water source.
It’s been a nonissue for so long that Thomas Holloway, MVSD chief engineer, said the district and communities that use its water, which comes from the Meander Reservoir, are required by the state Environmental Protection Agency to test for lead and copper levels only once every three years.
“We’ve not seen anything to indicate there’s an issue,” he said.
The Vindicator raised questions about lead in the area’s water system because of the dangerously high levels found in the Flint, Mich., water supply.
The lead problem in Flint started when the state temporarily switched that city’s water source from Lake Huron to the Flint River in April 2014. After finding high levels of lead, the city went back to Lake Huron in October. But the damage was done with the contaminants in the city’s pipes, about half of them made of lead, in Flint’s water supply.
It’s been reported that had Michigan used an anti-corrosive agent, it would have resolved about 90 percent of the problems in Flint.
The MVSD doesn’t use that anti-corrosive agent because it’s not needed, Holloway said.
Most of the pipes going from main waterlines to homes built in the 1920s and earlier are made of lead, said Eugene Leson Jr., Youngstown’s chief engineer.
“We test for lead in the system in houses of that era, and lead has not been found,” he said. Those tests are done every three years.
“If you get certain lead or copper levels in the water, you have to be tested more often,” Holloway said. “If you have a problem, you have to test more and do something to resolve it. It’s not been an issue.”
When asked if what happened in Flint could happen here, Holloway said, “I can’t say that, but all the results we’ve had shows it’s not an issue.”
The MVSD sells water to Youngstown and Niles, which then sells it to about 200,000 customers in Mahoning and Trumbull counties.