LEAD LEVELS DECREASE SLIGHTLY

IN LATEST MONITORING PERIOD

 
Helping needy
customers through
Pennies for Power

 

In these tough economic times a lot of our customers are having a hard time keeping up on their utility bill.

 

You can help by signing up for the BWL’s Pennies for Power, a program that provides one-time utility shut-off protection for needy customers. Joining is easy and painless. And collectively, it can make a real difference.

 

Pennies for Power participants agree to have their utility bill rounded up to the next highest dollar each month, with the extra change going toward shut-off protection for customers who can’t make their utility bill payment. Right now, 4,500 BWL customers participate in the program, contributing more than $40,000 per year to Pennies for Power. Since our program was launched six years ago, our customers have contributed more than $260,000 to Pennies for Power.

 

Our program is administered by Capital Area Community Services, which screens applicants and determines the level of support for each. You can join Pennies for Power by completing the form at the bottom of Connections and returning it with your utility payment.

Lead concentrations in Lansing drinking water have decreased slightly according to the results of recent sampling conducted by the Board of Water & Light.

 

Results of this year’s compliance monitoring were forwarded to the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality in November. They show lead concentrations remain below the standard set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and have declined since the last round of monitoring conducted in 2002.

 

Drinking water utilities are below the EPA’s lead action level if 90 percent of homes tested have lead concentrations of 15 parts per billion or less. In our latest round of testing, 90 percent of homes tested had lead concentrations of 12 parts per billion or less. The last time compliance monitoring was conducted on our system, lead concentrations at the 90th percentile were 13 parts per billion.

 

This year’s testing was far more rigorous than EPA regulations require. We sampled tap water at 121 homes, nearly three times the number the utility was required to test. Nearly all the homes tested are connected to the BWL’s water mains with a service line made of lead. These are houses where lead concentrations are likely to be the highest.

 

While the results of these most recent tests are encouraging, we’re committed to reducing lead levels further. “We’re heading in the right direction, but we still have work to do,” said BWL General Manager Sandy Novick. “Through education and action, we’ll take all appropriate steps to protect our customers from exposure to lead in drinking water.”

 

Among other things, this includes investigating ways to reduce the corrosiveness of drinking water so small particles of lead in plumbing or lead pipes don’t dissolve into the water. Environmental consultant Malcolm Pirnie recently finished an extensive study of the BWL’s system and has submitted a series of recommendations for improving our corrosion control program.

 

We’re also going beyond EPA requirements by systematically removing all lead service lines from our water system. This year we’ve replaced some 1,400 lead service lines and are on schedule to replace the remaining 11,000 lines by 2014. We also provide free water filters and replacement cartridges to our customers who have lead service lines.

 

 

All water customers can take these
simple precautions to protect
themselves from lead in drinking water:

 

· Use only the cold-water tap for drinking, cooking or making baby formula.

· Flush your pipes before drawing water for drinking or cooking. For customers with standard copper service lines this means running the water until it becomes as cold as it can get. This can take as few as five to 30 seconds if there has been recent water use, or as long as two minutes if water hasn’t been run for several hours.

· Customers with lead service lines should flush their water for up to seven minutes if water has been idle in pipes for six hours or longer. Or, they can use a BWL-supplied water filter for water used for drinking or cooking.

 

Click here for more information about lead in drinking water. We’ll also continue to keep you informed through the Connections newsletter, found in your monthly statement.

 

  

  

I-5 reopens

Water Room

Exhibit

 

  

Jan. 19 marks an important day for Lansing’s Impression 5 Science Center. That’s when I-5 unveils its new and improved Water Room Exhibit.

 

Long a popular attraction, the Water Room teaches kids about the different properties of water, such as hydrology, propulsion, buoyancy, measurement and pressure. With help from a grant from the BWL, I-5 has improved the exhibit by adding information and material to help visitors grasp these scientific principles more readily.

 

I-5 members and the general public are invited to the reopening of the Water Room exhibit Thursday, Jan. 19. A brief ceremony will be held at 5:45 p.m., followed by the opening of the exhibit at 6 p.m.

 

DELIVERY DELAYS FORCE

PARTIAL SWITCH TO EASTERN COAL

You may have noticed a slight bump in your BWL electric bill over the last two months, reflecting the cost of burning more expensive coal for some of our electric production.

The partial switch to more expensive coal from the Appalachian region was made necessary by disrupted deliveries of Western coal from Wyoming’s Powder River Basin (PRB). It’s a problem shared by utilities throughout the Midwest and eastern United States. Here’s what happened.

The BWL and most other utilities burn PRB coal because it costs less and is lower in sulfur and nitrogen than Eastern coal from the Appalachian region. Union Pacific is the railroad that delivers PRB coal from the mine head to Chicago. In April, the railroad cut deliveries to all utilities by 15 percent after bad weather washed out a portion of its track.

In October, a bad situation got worse when more storms washed out bridges near Kansas City, restricting deliveries even further. By October 20 the BWL, which normally receives 13 coal deliveries per month, had received only four shipments, with four more fully loaded train sets stranded in Kansas City.

Concerned about the possibility of such a development, the BWL had purchased 30,000 tons of Eastern coal in September as a hedge against more delivery disruptions from Union Pacific. After the October washouts we began burning Eastern coal at our Eckert Power Plant and bought another 50,000 tons to burn through the rest of the year while we build up our stockpile of PRB coal. The Erickson Plant continues to burn PRB coal, and deliveries have now returned to their pre-October levels.

The added cost of the Eastern coal is reflected in the energy cost adjustment on utility bills. This energy cost adjustment floats up or down to reflect the fluctuating cost we pay for fuel. The increased energy cost adjustment in November added $1.15 to the utility bill of a residential customer using 500 kilowatt-hours of electricity.

 

BWL SPEAKERS AVAILABLE FOR

COMMUNITY MEETINGS AND EVENTS

Want to know more about your publicly owned utility and how it benefits customers, owners and the Lansing community?

 The BWL now has a speakers bureau, which is available for presentations to neighborhood organizations and civic groups. Topics range from the benefits of public power to informative presentations about tree trimming and lead water service lines. For more information or to book an appointment, call us at 517-702-6679.