Walker: Lead pipe project comes from feds, not city

Ruston Mayor Ronny Walker wants local water customers to know the city isn’t willfully embarking on a project to find all the lead and galvanized pipe through which customers’ water may run, even if that pipe is on private property.

“The city of Ruston did not start this. This is something the federal government came up with,” Mayor Ronny Walker said Tuesday.

Walker called the unfunded mandate “ the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”

“This is not us. We do not want to do this,” he said. “The whole process is federally directed.”

Notices went out late last week to 6,262 of the city’s approximately 10,000 water customers advising them the service line connecting their residence or business to the city water main may be lead.

Though the notices are on city letterhead, the wording came from the federal government.

“You are receiving this notice because your service line type has not yet been determined,” the one- page notice reads. “The city will continue working to identify service line materials throughout the water system in the coming months.”

As part of the Moving Ruston Forward infrastructure initiative, the city has already gotten rid of the lead pipes in its distribution system, but nobody knows about service lines because those don’t belong to the city.

Service lines are the pipes that run from the meter — which is city property — to the residence or business. Service lines are the customer’s responsibility.

Walker said now the city must physically go to every targeted home or business and determine two things: whether pipes that are going to the water meter are lead, and whether the service line from the meter to the customer is lead.

That will mean digging two feet from the meter connection in both directions and going on private property — something the city legally can’t do without the owner’s permission.

The city has three years to locate all the lead lines and 10 years after that to replace them.

“It’s a huge expense,” Walker said.

So far, officials have no idea what the cost may be. It’s also unclear what happens if city crews discover lead service lines.

In the meantime, the notice outlines several steps customers can take to reduce lead in their drinking water, if, in fact, it’s there.

Those steps include using filters, not using hot water from the tap, and flushing pipes by the running the tap before showering, doing laundry, or a load to dishes.