Audit criticizes Health Department in the wake of high lead levels in city water - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

An audit has concluded that the Allegheny County Health Department isn’t providing adequate oversight of 36 community water supplies and hasn’t appropriately responded to tests showing high lead levels in some city drinking water samples.

But the health department replied that it’s doing what the law allows and said the human health risk from lead in Pittsburgh’s water pales in comparison to the risk from exposure to flaking and deteriorating lead paint.

County Controller Chelsa Wagner said her 34-page audit report, released Monday, found “concerning lapses” in the health department’s monitoring of the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority, including a failure to identify a change in the use of water corrosion control chemicals, from soda ash to caustic soda, in April 2014.

She said high lead levels found in the water supply in Flint, Mich., in 2014 had heightened the public’s concern about lead in public water supplies, but the health department hasn’t reflected those concerns or taken action appropriate to a “water quality crisis.”

“This is a question of priorities and will, and perhaps casting an eye on agencies that have traditionally not come under much scrutiny,” Ms. Wagner said. “This is too big a question and concern to continue to be left to localities that lack the wherewithal to truly confront this issue or unaccountable authorities that are content to point fingers elsewhere.”

The audit says the state Department of Environmental Protection granted the county health department primary oversight of the 36 community water systems operating in the county, but the scope of the health department's authority is unclear. The report urged the health department to formalize that arrangement and step up its monitoring, enforcement and water test verification efforts, as authorized by the federal Clean Water Act.

The health department director, Karen Hacker said her department follows procedures in the federal Lead and Copper Rule and has publicized the high lead levels in the PWSA service area through public education, outreach sessions and on the department’s website. It has also petitioned the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency to require more frequent water testing and tighter health-based lead action levels and advised concerned customers to have their water tested for free by the PWSA.

But Dr. Hacker said lead in paint and airborne lead due to home remodeling work pose much greater risks to children than lead in water.

“Over the last two years, I can say that we’ve never had a situation in the county where lead in the water was a primary contributor to high childhood lead readings,” Dr. Hacker said. “Lead in paint is a much more substantial risk.”

She said that of the almost 14,000 children in the county tested for lead in 2014, 135 had elevated lead levels in their blood. None of those elevated levels could be linked to exposure to water. Rather, she said, all were related to airborne dust from old and deteriorating lead paint. The health department has proposed requiring childhood lead level testing and reporting.

The PWSA has about 83,000 customer households. It’s estimated that 5 percent to 20 percent have lead service lines, the lines running from the water main connectors into individual houses.

In April, the DEP ordered PWSA to test lead levels in 100 homes with lead pipes, and lead levels above the action level of 15 parts per billion were found in 17. As a result, the PWSA was required to inventory the lead service lines and begin a replacement program. Ms. Wagner said the authority’s inability to identify the number and location of those lines reflects a failure to prioritize public concerns.

“We need an all-hands-on-deck effort to address all areas of concern,” she said. “Where those [lead] pipes are is certainly one of them.”

Exposure to high lead levels is hazardous to pregnant women, infants and young children. Studies show even low-level childhood exposure can diminish mental capacity, and higher exposures can cause behavioral problems, learning disabilities, seizures and death.

Don Hopey: 412-263-1983, dhopey@post-gazette.com or on Twitter @donhopey