Lead Treatment

Lead Awareness
An updated lead awareness webpage will be coming soon which will include detailed instructions customers should take if they receive a door hanger related to lead. Until then, customers with questions about the door hangers should call our Lead Inquiry Line at 216-664-2882.

Cleveland Water is lead free when it leaves our water treatment plants and travels through our water mains. However, some homes and buildings served by Cleveland Water have lead in their plumbing system. This includes service lines, lead pipes within the home, high lead solder used to join copper pipes, and older faucets, fittings and fixtures.

We have optimized our water treatment process to help protect you and your family from the risks associated with lead in water. Our test results show these treatment techniques are successful. There are actions you can take in your home to reduce your family’s risk of lead in drinking water even more. To learn more, download our 2018 Lead Awareness brochure.

Check Your Connection Report Your Test Results

 

Understanding Lead

Lead does not typically come from the treatment plant or water mains in the Cleveland Water System. Instead, if there is lead in the drinking water, it comes from various places between the water main and your faucet. If you have questions about lead, call Cleveland Water's Lead Inquiry Line at 216-664-2882.

What You Can Do at Home

What you can do at home

1

Cleveland Water's Infrastructure
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Cleveland Water's Infrastructure
Cleveland Water maintains the water main in the street and the connection between the water main and the curb stop, referred to as the cityside connection. Houses built after 1954 are unlikely to have a lead cityside connection.

2

Property Owner's Responsibility
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Property Owner's Responsibility
According to the American Water Works Association research, the majority of the risk for lead contamination comes from the service line or plumbing on the property owner's side.

3

Property Owner's Service Line
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Property Owner's Service Line
In terms of customer owned plumbing, the biggest potential source of risk comes from lead service lines.

4

Property Owner's At-Home Plumbing
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Property Owner's At-Home Plumbing
Potential sources of lead contamination in your home plumbing include copper plumbing with high lead solder installed before 1986 and brass fittings and fixtures installed before 2014.

Lead Treatment

Do I have a lead cityside connection?

Like many older water systems across the country, the Cleveland Water system does contain some cityside lead connections. Cityside connections are maintained by Cleveland Water. In general, if your home was built after 1954 or your connection is larger than one inch in diameter, it is unlikely that you have a lead cityside connection. To see a map of our service area that shows the percentage of Cleveland Water's cityside connections that are suspected to be lead, click here. If you would like to have your water tested, click here for a list maintained by Ohio EPA of certified laboratories that can test for lead and many other potential contaminants.

Use the search tool below to find out about the cityside connection that serves your property.

Please enter a street direction only if your street is numbered or the address on your water bill includes a direction. For example, E. 185.

Do NOT include the street type (Lane, Street, etc.). For example, use Fir instead of Fir Avenue.

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Search Clear

Check Your Property

Cleveland Water is proactively addressing lead service lines in our system. We have good data on what the materials are on the city's portion of the service lines in our entire system. However, we don't know what is on the privately-owned customer side of the service line that runs through your front yard into your home. This is where you can help us help you - our customer. By doing a simple test and providing your results, you can tell us what material your portion of the service line is made of. This will help us better inventory materials throughout our entire system and better target how we can continue to proactively address lead service lines.

Do I have lead plumbing on my property?

Like many older water systems, some homes and businesses in the Cleveland Water System may have lead service lines on their property, or have plumbing that contains lead, copper with high lead solder or brass fixtures that may contain lead. 

How to Test Your Plumbing

  • Take a penny and gently scrape the pipe that comes out of the wall or basement floor before the water meter. See Diagram Here.

There are typically three types of pipe material you will see: lead, copper or galvanized steel.

Lead

No Magnet

Lead Pipe

  • A magnet will not stick to a lead pipe.
  • Scratch the pipe with a coin. If the scraped area is shiny silver and flakes off, the service line is lead.
Copper

No Magnet Penny

Copper Pipe

  • A magnet will not stick to a copper pipe.
  • Scratch the pipe with a penny. If the scraped area is copper in color, like a penny, your service line is copper.
Steel

Magnet

Galvanized Steel Pipe

  • If a magnet sticks to the surface, your service line is galvanized steel.
  • A scratch test is not needed. If you scratch the pipe, it will remain a dull gray.

Record Your Test Results

 

Please enter a street direction only if your street is numbered or the address on your water bill includes a direction. For example, E. 185.

Do NOT include the street type (Lane, Street, etc.). For example, use Fir instead of Fir Avenue.

Captcha image

Record Test Results Clear

What can I do if I have a lead connection or plumbing?

Cleveland Water utilizes orthophosphate in our treatment process, and our test results submitted to the Ohio EPA indicate it is very successful in protecting customers from risks associated with lead found in cityside connections, property owners' portion of the service connection, and in-home plumbing.

However, if your home has a lead service connection or home plumbing that contains lead, here are some things you can do to even further reduce the possibility of lead in your drinking water.

♦ Before using water for drinking or cooking, turn on the cold tap and let it run for 1 to 2 minutes, particularly if the water has been off and sitting in the pipes in your home for more than 6 hours. You’ll know the water is fresh when the temperature becomes noticeably cooler to the touch.

♦ Note that boiling will not reduce the amount of lead in your water, and can, in fact, concentrate it.

♦ Avoid drinking or cooking with water from the hot water tap. Always use cold water for cooking, drinking and making baby formula. If you want to heat water for these purposes, always heat cold water in a bottle warmer, in the microwave or on the stove.

♦ Periodically clean the aerator on faucets you use for drinking, cooking, brushing teeth, or other potable uses. The aerator is the wire screened portion of a faucet where the water comes out. These can be unscrewed from the faucet and taken apart for easy cleaning. Lead containing particles, if present, can get stuck on this wire screen and erode into the water.

♦ If you are concerned and would like extra protection, purchase a point-of-use treatment device certified to remove lead, and make sure it is properly maintained. The device should be certified for potable water use by one of several certifying organizations such as the National Sanitation Foundation (NSF), Underwriters Laboratory (UL), or Water Quality Association (WQA).

     

The Ohio EPA maintains a list of certified laboratories that can test for lead and many other potential contaminants at http://www.epa.ohio.gov/Portals/28/documents/labcert/Chemical%20and%20Microbiological%20Labs.pdf