Ridgewood Water Addressing Lead Levels With Pilot Program

By Devin McGinley

Ridgewood Water is piloting a program to reduce the potential for lead to leak into its water supply, following a citation of the utility for elevated lead levels by the state’s Department of Environmental Protection last year.

According to an annual drinking water quality report released earlier this month, 11 of 60 water samples, or 21.6 percent, taken by the utility for DEP review in June 2012 found traces of lead exceeding federal standards. Consumers served by the utility in Ridgewood, Glen Rock, Wyckoff and Midland Park were notified of the results in October, and the state required the utility to take corrective action.

“Their lead levels are not a public safety issue at this point,” DEP spokesman Larry Ragonese told Patch.

“It’s not uncommon to get elevated levels of lead or arsenic or other materials in the water system. If they were above the level that would cause a health problem, of course we’d shut the system down. But they’re nowhere near that,” he added.

The drinking water supply itself isn’t contaminated, explained Ridgewood Water director Frank Moritz. Rather, in older homes built before the 1987 ban on the use of lead in service lines, corrosion of pipes can result in traces of lead seeping into tap water.

“Only older homes and homes that have lead solder and lead services” have the issue, he said. “It’s not a widespread thing.”

But if uncorrected, Ragonese noted, corroded lead pipes do pose the risk of wider contamination to the system.

In August 2012 the DEP gave the utility two years to take steps to remedy the issue, and Ragonese said that the company proposed a pilot program designed to address corroding pipes throughout the system.

The way the state-approved plan works, the officials said, is by pumping polyphosphates into the water at the system’s entry points, which the utility believes over time will coat older pipes and prevent corrosion from leaching lead into the water supply.

According to the DEP, the program is the first of its kind in the state, and in other cases elevated lead levels have been dealt with through special filtering.

Moritz said that the water company began a trial of the program on a section of the system between Ridgewood and Midland Park three weeks ago, and that the utility will expand the effort if tests show the program to be effective in the area. He added that the company believes expects the pilot to last about three months.

According to the quality report, United Water and the Hawthorne Water Department, which sometimes supplement the Ridgewood Water supply during shortages, were clear of violations during testing in 2012.

Officials of the Ridgewood company have said that residents concerned with the presence of lead in their tap water can clear any issues by simply running the faucet for 30 seconds.

Ragonese said that the company has complied fully with DEP requirements, which include public notice and education as well as a full investigation of the source of the lead levels.