BY ADAM ATKINSONNorth Country This Week

POTSDAM — Service laterals carrying water from village mains to homes will be getting a closer look for lead in an upcoming inventory project planned by the village.

The project, required by U.S. Environmental Protection Agency lead rules, will identify lead sections from the service pipe lines feeding residences. The sections identified can then be removed by the village in a second phase of the project over the next decade as required by the EPA.   

Matt Cooper and Dave Powers of the Watertown engineering firm Barton & Loguidice, along with Mike App from the firm Electro Scan Inc. based in Baldwinsville, were on hand to give a quick overview of the project at the April 15 village board meeting.

Cooper said the village contracted with the B&L about two years ago for help on a grant to pay for the inventory project.

“The EPA lead and copper rule requires that you complete your initial inventory of all water and sewer laterals by this cycle,” Cooper told the board.

Cooper said the village was awarded a grant for just over a million dollars to pay 100 percent of the inventory project. B&L will be subcontracting the work to Electro Scan, a firm which App said will use electrical resistance to analyze the material used in the village’s roughly 1400 service laterals, looking for lead.

“This is the first step in the process where you have to identify the material composition of every water service lateral in the village,” Cooper said. He said the requirement is that ultimately the village would eliminate any lead portions that would be found.

Cooper said the village has 10 years for full compliance with the removal of the lead laterals.

“But initially you have to put together an inventory of what you have and then put together a game plan on that,” Cooper said.

Cooper said the technique for analysis of the service laterals offered by Electro Scan was the “least invasive and most thorough” method to verify the material of the service laterals. Other techniques might require the lines to be dug up from the mains to the house to determine the materials used or require work in residential basements.

The firms will first look at existing documents on file with the village before using the electrical resistance technique to physically identify unknown material sections. Any homes documented that were built after the 1986 lead ban could presumably be ruled out.

Cooper said the project was a “little more personal” to village residents than a usual infrastructure project, as the village may end up excavating some laterals in front of homes and in some cases basement access may be required.   

Cooper said however that the lead inventory and removal is something that needs to be done and said the village is taking the most thorough approach to the requirement of any community B&L are working with.

App said lead is a problem in the northeast with service laterals. App said the inventory will help B&L apply for grants for the construction phase of the project to remove lead, as well as save money overall on the work by verifying where the lead is.

Village administrator Greg Thompson said the village does have paper records of the service laterals in the municipality, but those existing records don’t have details about the materials used. The inventory project will enhance the village’s database.

Later during the meeting the village board passed a resolution by a unanimous roll call vote that stated that the inventory project is a Type II action under the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA). As a Type II action no further environmental review is required the resolution said.