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Federal grant pays for Sebring system to buffer pipes to reduce lead in water
By Ed Runyan
SEBRING
A $404,000 U.S. Department of Agriculture grant will help Sebring cover costs it has incurred related to high lead levels in drinking water and help prevent future high lead levels.
The village has spent more than $70,000 to respond to the crisis, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown said in announcing the grant Monday.
“We simply can’t take chances with our children’s health, pure and simple,” Brown said.
“That’s why our office called the [U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] in January when this story broke when we first learned about the crisis.”
Village Manager Richard D. Giroux said the grant “substantially minimizes the financial impact of the water crisis to the village.”
Bret E. Norton, an engineer with W.E. Quicksall & Associates Inc. of New Philadelphia, the village’s consulting engineers, said about $220,000 will be used to add orthophosphate to the water.
That chemical adds a layer of protection to the inside of water pipes and plumbing to reduce the amount of lead that leaches from them into the water.
The village has been adding orthophosphate to the water for about three weeks on a temporary basis.
When construction at the treatment plant is finished, it will be added on a permanent basis, Norton said.
Sebring Mayor Michael Pinkerton said the orthophosphate won’t eliminate all high lead levels, so the village will be looking at individual homes after that to determine whether pipes need to be replaced to reduce other sources of lead.
At a news conference, Brown said the funding would be used to purchase a system to “help detect lead in the water almost immediately... and will release a chemical that prevents lead from contaminating our water in the first place.”
That statement was only half correct, Norton said, however.
The system to be installed doesn’t detect lead.
The normal testing measures already being employed will still be used for that.
Another $231,000 will be used for engineering, lab work and studies related to corrosion control and testing of the Sebring water, said Tony Logan, Ohio director for the USDA’s Rural Development Agency.
The grant will pay close to $10,000 for bottled water the village has provided during the crisis and about $20,000 owed to the Mahoning County Board of Health for lead testing that has been done for Sebring-water customers.