Great Falls public works staff are continuing to prepare for new federal regulations pertaining to lead levels in public drinking water that are set to go into effect in October 2024.

The rules will lower the amount of detectable lead in the water that triggers treatment actions and data reporting, with the potential for significant cost to the City of Great Falls.

The new rules are from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and city officials have said in multiple public meetings the revision for stricter compliance was triggered by the 2014 Flint, Mich. water crisis in which public water supplies were contaminated with lead.

They’ve been discussing the new rules and their impact to the city with City Commissioners for the last two and a half years.

City continuing to plan for new EPA rule, considering options to cover costs

Multiple public works staffers have said during commission meetings and in conversations with The Electric that the EPA has not yet finalized their new lead and copper rules and so it’s been a challenge for them to plan and that their plans could change as the federal rules continue to evolve.

But, staff has warned commissioners for years that the new requirements could come with significant cost to the city.

The EPA is requiring a public inventory of lead, galvanized and unknown water service lines.

Staff has been developing that inventory for the last two years.

Under the new rules, the inventory will have to show what water service lines are not known as lead, those that are known as lead and those that are unknown.

City continuing effort to inventory water service lines ahead of new EPA rules

The city adopted rules in the 1960s or 70s that prohibited lead pipes and they can use that documentation to help identify what type of pipes are where in the city.

The city has been using historical records to identify as many service line materials as possible, and sent 10,000 letters to property owners who might have non-copper service lines over the summer of 2022 asking them to do identification tests of their pipes.

As of May 2023, the city had identified 14,846 or 67.8 percent lines as non-lead; 142 or 0.6 percent as lead; 502 or 2.3 percent as galvanized; and 6,423 or 29.3 percent as unknown.

Only about 3,000 people had responded to the letters about identifying service lines, James Hewitt of public works told commissioners during their June work session.

City planning pilot program to replace lead lines for upcoming EPA rule [2023]

Staff has been following up with phone calls. Hewitt said in June that they ask homeowners to return the info or staff will go out and help them get the info to identify the line material.

Hewitt said homeowners aren’t returning messages, hanging up on staff or choosing not to participate.

Hewett told commissioners during the June 4 meeting that they’d completed the follow up calls with roughly 7,500 homeowners.

During their Sept. 17 work session, Mark Juras of public works told commissioners that staff has been continuing to follow-up with homeowners and over the winter months will be going door to door in an attempt to collect that information.

As of Sept. 17, staff had identified the following service lines in the city limits:

• non-lead: 15,664 or 71.9 percent
• lead: 157 or 0.7 percent
• galvanized: 590 or 2.7 percent
• unknown: 5,378 or 24.7 percent

Unknown lines are considered lead until proven otherwise under the EPA regulations.

Chris Gaub, public works director, said during the June 4 work session that the city had spent $387,159 in staff time making those calls and working on plans to meet the new EPA rule.

The city received a technical assistance grant through the Montana Department of Commerce for 100 hours of engineering hours at no cost to the city.

City continuing preparation for new EPA rules [2023]

AE2S, an engineering firm with a Great Falls office that has assisted the city on a number of water related projects, has been assigned to the city for the grant.

They’ve helped the city prepare the inventory that will be submitted to the EPA and Montana Department of Environmental Quality in October. Once that’s submitted, the city has three years to finalize it, Gaub said.

Juras said during the Sept. 17 commission work session that they were ready to submit their inventory to the EPA and once they do, addresses of all lead, galvanized and unknown lines will be posted on the website by Oct. 16, which is an EPA requirement.

The city website will also include information on how homeowners can verify their pipe materials and submit that information to the city.

Juras said that once they submit their inventory on Oct. 16, staff has to notice roughly 6,000 nonconforming locations, meaning they’re identified as lead or unknowns, within 30 days. Staff also has to send a notice to that location annually, whenever there’s a new water customer at that location and whenever the city is replacing service lines at that location.

How far will Montana’s push to remove lead from school drinking water go? [2023]

City staff also has 45 days to notify property owners prior to partial service line replacement of non-conforming lines with active water main replacement projects and provide filter pitchers to residents, under EPA requirements, Juras said.

That’s estimated to cost $10,000 annually, plus staff time, to meet those EPA requirements, Juras told commissioners.

Juras said staff has already sent letters and called property owners that have unknown lines at least once. They’ll be going door to door during the winter months with the goal of reducing the number of unknown lines before the EPA mandated replacement starts. Staff will leave door hangers with information if residents don’t answer, he said.

Under the proposed rules, Juras said changes to the city’s water sampling requirements begin Oct. 16.

Under those rules, the city will have to sample the first and fifth liter of water at 60 tiered locations, twice annually.

The rules also change requirements for trigger and action levels, which require more public notices, and sampling results must be included in the city’s water consumer confidence report, he said.

Brandi Nicholson, a city water quality specialist, told The Electric that testing priority goes first to single family homes, followed by multi-family residences and businesses. If they can’t find 60 locations willing to participate, staff will have to default further down the tier list, which includes galvanized, then copper service lines.

City developing plans for new federal rules on lead in drinking water [2022]

Under the new rules, the city is required to conduct lead and copper testing at 20 percent of all elementary schools and 20 percent of all state licensed daycare facilities annually, plus any secondary school that requests sampling, for the first five years after the rule goes into effect, Nicholson told The Electric.

After those five years, the city would be required to do testing at any school within the city limits that requests it, with some exceptions, including facilities built after 2014 and any school or daycare sampled under a state or other program after Oct. 16. 2024, Nicholson said.

She said they’re unsure if the sampling Great Falls Public Schools is conducting under a separate state rule will satisfy that requirement and the rules are still subject to change until EPA finalizes the rule.

GFPS has been testing sinks and fountains for lead under a rule from the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services that was created in January 2020 requiring schools to check at least every three years for lead in the water of any sink or fountain used for drinking or food prep.

Schools’ initial deadline to get that done was Dec. 31, 2021.

Under the rule, any faucet whose water has a lead concentration of five parts per billion or higher must be fixed or routinely flushed. Fixtures that test higher than 15 ppb must immediately be shut off.

According to Brian Patrick, business operations manager for GFPS, all district buildings have been tested and there was no cost to the district for the initial testing as it was covered by DPHHS.

GFPS working to replace, fix faucets, sinks where lead detected under new state rule [2022]

Some fountains in district buildings tested above the thresholds set by the rule and were immediately taken out of service, Patrick told The Electric. The test results are posted to the GFPS website.

Patrick told The Electric that filters were installed in many of the places that tested high, replaced some and eliminated a few faucets.

Patrick that the district has started up sampling again and the state appropriated some funds to cover those costs this year.

Juras told commissioners during their Sept. 17 meeting that the sampling requirements are estimated to cost the city $20,000 annually plus staff time.

The EPA has finalized part of the rules, which state that if the city exceeds the action and trigger level in it’s sampling results, then mandated replacements will kick in at three percent of lines per year for 33 years. The EPA hasn’t yet finalized another portion of the rule, which would mandate 10 percent replacement per year for a decade.

Under the EPA rules, it’s the city’s responsibility to implement the lead and copper rules, which may call for replacing those types of service lines, putting that rule in conflict with city policy, which states that the property owner is responsible for the service line from the main into the property, Juras said.

Anticipating that replacement will be mandated, city staff is proposing a pilot with 20 homes.

City prepping for new EPA rules on lead in public water systems [2022]

Juras said that the best case scenario is that the city is able to identify more of the unknown lines and reduce the lines that would have to be replaced under the EPA rules to 1,100 lines at $15,000 each for an estimated $17 million over 33 years.

Worst case, Juras said, is that if the full 6,125 lead and unknown lines currently in the inventory had to be replaced over the next decade, at a cost of about $92 million to the city and by extension, taxpayers.

Mayor Cory Reeves asked if the public works staff had reached out to the congressional delegation about the rule.

City Manager Greg Doyon said that’s not something staff would do, but that he could draft a letter for commission consideration.

Juras said many voices have been pushing against the new rules, but that there might be more pushing for it because of lead concerns.

Commissioner Rick Tryon asked if there would be consequences if citizens with lead or galvanized lines didn’t replace those lines.

Doyon said they’d have that conversation months ago and that in his experience with EPA rules, the city would be held responsible for not enforcing the rule, given some time to comply and be threatened with fines, or actually fined.

The same question was asked during the June work session

Gaub told The Electric that if they don’t, the city will have to pay for it and that cost would be spread to all water utility rate payers in the city.

He said the incentives he could think of for property owners to replace their lead lines are:

• for their own health since their lead lines would only affect the water supply to their property
• to not further burden their fellow rate payers
• to potentially not negatively affect the sale of their property

Further, city staff has said that if the city has to cover to cost of lead line replacements, including for those unknown lines, it will likely have to increase water rates to all city customers.

The rule will affect all public owned water systems nationwide, to include smaller systems in Montana, such as the Sun Prairie Village County and Water Sewer District, which posted noticed this week that it was collecting data for its EPA required system inventory.