Service Line letters sent to city water customers

New state and federal laws now require the City of Lamar to inventory all water service lines in our service area. A service line is an underground pipe that carries water from the main, likely in the street, into the customer’s home or building. The City must notify consumers annually if their service line material is unknown, lead, galvanized requiring replacement, or copper.

The City of Lamar is required to send “Notice of Possible Lead Service Line Material” letters annually to all commercial and residential water customers where the City has not verified what type of service line
was used for either a property’s City supply line and/or the customer’s water line. Of the City’s 3,617 water customers, it has confirmed that 1,540 customers have non-lead service lines. The remaining 2,077 City water customers are “unknown.” In many cases, service line materials merely need to be
documented. Also, original service lines may have been replaced with newer materials, but the City does not have documentation to verify this. Municipal governments will begin the replacement of City-owned lead service lines once inventories have been completed and funding sources have been identified.

The Colorado Department of Health & Environment (CDPHE)-mandated letter explains the new notification requirement, what it means to Lamar recipients, health effects of lead, and how to reduce your potential exposure to lead.
This aligns with the City’s parallel grant project to sample 250 commercial and residential properties and establish a baseline inventory. A contractor is currently performing this sampling in Lamar.

For more information on reducing lead exposure around homes and buildings and the health effects of lead, visit the Environmental Protection Agency’s website at www.epa.gov/lead. Contact the City’s Public Works Department at 719-336-2002 or LamarPublicWorks@ci.lamar.co.us for more information
about the annual notices.

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