City of Marlow explains letters from EPA on water conditions

Almost 950 letters will be sent to citizens by the City of Marlow under a new mandate by the federal government.

Under the 2021 Lead and Copper Rule Revisions (LCRR), water systems like the City of Marlow must provide citizens with information about their service lines. 

“Lead in the city’s water system is, and has been, well below any federal standards,” said Jason McPherson, city administrator. “I hope folks aren’t alarmed.”

“City staff, including many man hours by the water/sewer department, inventoried the types of lines in the ground both on the city side and the customer side of the meter,"

McPherson continued. 

“These letters are a follow-up to that inventory. The letters, under standards from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) seem worrisome, but I hope citizens understand that
there is not enough lead in the city’s water system to be harmful.”

The letters will go out Friday, and McPherson said that the EPA required notification to all citizens may be, or may have been, downstream from a lead pipe at one time, and is serviced by a galvanized pipe. The EPA refers to this as GRR, or Galvanized Requiring Replacement. 

The letters spell out the health effects of lead, where lead comes from, and steps to reduce exposure to lead. The letters also note that lead can be present in buildings or dwellings because of materials in the interior plumbing system.

“In all, 947 letters will go out Friday,” McPherson noted. All water systems will be required to replace galvanized portions of service lines. It is something the City of Marlow, and most other waster systems, have been doing for decades.

“Lead lines have been a thing of the past here for years,” McPherson said. “But there are types of galvanized lines that are still present that could have lead residue from past corrosion of those older lines, according to the EPA. Our crew continues to work on these lines as a part of their maintenance of the overall system.”

Should you receive a letter and want further information, city staff is prepared to help provide more insight on the city’s water system.

“We have current and past testing that shows the amount of lead in the system,” McPherson said. “There has always been lead present, but the amounts are very small.
 It would be great to have no lead, but for most water systems that are as old as Marlow’s, it’s what we are working to.

The city will also have a map of the inventory, with the addition of several other maps, on its website in the coming months, McPherson noted.