Search is on for money-saving way to detect lead water lines in the ground; Parma Heights pipe farm to be test site

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Cities across the country are trying to replace their lead water pipes, but part of the challenge is figuring out where they are.

The only way to identify many lead water lines, which are generally buried several feet deep in the ground, is to dig them up and do a visual inspection.

But that costs money. In Cleveland, it’s an estimated $700 per connection, according to Alex Margevicius, commissioner of the Cleveland Division of Water. And that would cost tens of millions of dollars for every water line used by the city’s water board that’s suspected of being leaded.

That’s a big reason the Cleveland Division of Water and several other Ohio utilities are joining forces with the nonprofit Cleveland Water Alliance to advance the development of technology that can identify lead lines without breaking new ground.

The alliance, which fosters water-related research and innovation, has challenged innovators to find a solution, and the Cleveland Water Authority has built a pipe farm on municipal land in Parma Heights that will serve as a test bed for the research.

The mini-manifold system features a water pipe with multiple connecting tubes made of copper, galvanized steel and lead, said Ebie Holst, director of clusters and innovation at the Alliance. The tubes are then covered with a variety of materials such as earth, gravel and concrete to replicate real world conditions.

The hope is that skilled innovators will test their technology on the pipe farm to see if it can accurately distinguish one pipe from another.

The Cleveland Division of Water, the nation’s 10th-largest water agency, and five other utilities — investor firm Aqua Ohio and the municipal water boards of Cincinnati, Akron, Conneaut and Sandusky — are expected to select promising technologies that could then qualify for cash prizes by the Cleveland Water Alliance.

The scope of the problem

Lead was once a popular material for building water pipes, Margevicius said, because it’s malleable and doesn’t corrode easily, but now ridding the country of lead water pipes has become a priority as more is learned about how lead is exposed can be harmful to adults, children and fetuses.

The federal bipartisan infrastructure law is providing $15 billion to help identify and replace lead service lines, and while line replacement is not yet mandated, it is believed that this could happen fairly soon, said Margevicius.

It has been estimated that there are 6 to 10 million lead water pipes in the country, serving between 15 and 22 million people, said Jonathan Cuppett, director of research programs at the Water Research Foundation. And at an estimated replacement cost of $4,500 per line, that’s more than $45 billion.

The Cleveland Water Authority services about 440,000 connections in and around Cuyahoga County, and at least 260,000 of those lines are believed to be made of something other than lead, either because of their size — lead would have made the lines too heavy — or they were laid after 1954, records show that lead pipes were no longer installed by Cleveland.

That leaves potentially 180,000 connections, most of them in residential areas, that may be made of lead, although the Cleveland Division of Water estimates that perhaps 60,000 of those lines have already been replaced with something other than lead.

But without the ability to know the difference, staring is the only way to know for sure.

“We have to treat all 180,000 as possibly lead unless we can prove otherwise,” Margevicius said, meaning that if they were all dug up for $700 each, the cost of that process alone would exceed $125 million.

Most lead plumbing used by the Cleveland Water Authority is located in Cleveland and the inner ring suburbs. Also, most of the lead is likely to be found in the urban portion of the line, which extends from below the street to the curb stop, where it then connects to the customer portion of the line.

The utility has significantly reduced any risk by treating its water with orthophosphate, a chemical that coats the insides of pipes and tubes and prevents lead from getting into the water. However, the goal remains to eliminate all risks by removing the pipes completely.

Underneath this piece of land owned by the Cleveland Division of Water in Parma Heights is a pipe farm designed to test for the presence of underground lead water mains.Cleveland Water Department

growing interest

The Cleveland Water Alliance launched its innovation challenge last year, but encountered logistical issues related to COVID-19 that prevented testing from being conducted, Holst said. Also, some of the innovators interested in participating had only conceptual ideas and no test-ready prototypes

The Alliance has reassessed its challenge this year and now hopes to help innovators take their ideas from concept to actual test-ready technology, perhaps by offering financial grants, while casting a wider net to see who else wants to enter the competition, Holst said.

The energy suppliers working with the alliance define certain parameters that have to be incorporated into the technology. For example, it may not be necessary to enter someone’s house or disturb the lead in the pipes.

The Water Research Foundation, which is supported by private and municipal water departments across the country, is funding a similar research project, Cuppett said, and will use the Cleveland Pipe Farm as a testing site as well as homes in some of the communities it works with.

water pipes

Water pipe connections are buried several meters underground. To know if they are made of lead, the lines often have to be dug up and visually inspected.Cleveland Water Department

Possible Technologies

One of the technologies that could lead to a solution uses acoustics. They’re already being used to detect leaks, Holst said, and one of the companies that has expressed interest believes detecting lead pipe would work, assuming “every type of metal has a different sound.”

Another possible technology would record stress waves by placing a sensor in the ground and tapping on the water pipe at the meter or curb stop, where the urban part of a water pipe connects to the part of the customer’s pipe called Cuppett.

The Water Research Foundation has looked into the use of “electrical resistance” technology, but found it unsuitable. The idea was to identify conducting materials by how well they resist an electric current flowing through them.

“It showed promise, both in the lab and in the field,” Cuppett said, but it ultimately proved problematic because it was difficult to make a good connection.

In any case, finding a solution that prevents water pipe digging would be a major breakthrough, a “game changer” as Margevicius said, but he is also aware of the challenge this poses.

“This problem is not easy to solve, otherwise someone would have solved it,” Margevicius said.

water pipes

Most water pipes are made of lead, copper, or galvanized steel.Cleveland Water Department

You might also like

Comments are closed.