By now, most people know the BWL’s water system includes several thousand lead service lines. These are the pipes that carry water from our water main in the street to our customers’ homes.

Of our 57,000 water customers, about 12,000 are still served with lead service lines. Lead was a commonly used construction material in the water utility industry up until the mid 1950s, but health experts have determined that lead can be harmful to human health if inhaled or ingested. Too much lead in the human body can cause serious damage to the brain, kidneys, nervous system and red blood cells. The greatest risk is to pregnant women and young children under age six.

Health experts agree the greatest danger of lead exposure comes from lead dust and chips in old lead-based paint which was common before the 1970s, but lead from drinking water can also be a minor contributing factor.

Overall, lead concentrations in the BWL’s system are below the Environmental Protection Agency’s action level, but our Board of Commissioners has made the commitment to remove all lead service lines by 2014.

Regardless of what your service line is made of, you should still take some simple precautions to protect yourself and your family from lead exposure. Here’s why. Lead gets into the drinking water from sitting in pipes or fixtures with lead components. Lead service lines are only one source of exposure. Others include interior copper plumbing joined by lead-based solder, or brass plumbing fixtures in your interior plumbing. Even brass fixtures certified as lead-free can contain up to eight percent lead.

Here are two simple things you can do to reduce or eliminate exposure to lead in drinking water:

· If your water has been sitting idle inside your pipes for six hours or more, run the water until it turns cold before using any for consumption. This usually takes 30 seconds to a minute and ensures that you’re getting fresh water from the water main in the street.

· Always use the cold water tap for water used for cooking or consumption. That’s because hot water is more likely than cold water to dissolve lead from your fixtures.

Earlier this year, we sent letters to all our water

customers letting them know whether their service lines were made of standard material or lead.  If you didn’t get a letter, or forgot what it said, you can call our Customer Service phone number at 702-6006 to find out. If you do have a lead service line we can also tell you the approximate time it’s scheduled to be replaced.

Our ten-year replacement schedule is designed to coincide, where possible, with the City of Lansing’s Combined Sewer Overflow project or other scheduled street replacement projects. We’ll deviate from this schedule to handle special circumstances, particularly in homes occupied by pregnant women or children under age six, or homes where lead concentrations have tested above the EPA action level of 15 parts per billion. If your home fits any of those exceptions, call us and we’ll schedule a replacement.

If you’d like your water tested for lead, contact the Ingham County Health Department at 887-4312. A test costs about $20.  For more information about lead in drinking water, click here.  You can also call the EPA’s Safe Drinking Water Hotline at 1-800-426-4791.

With Michigan’s cold winter weather settling in, we’d like to remind our customers about steps they can take to make sure their water pipes don’t freeze.

· Replace broken basement windows and cover them with plastic for extra winter protection.

· Keep your basement adequately heated.

· Inspect and protect concealed pipes along outside walls, above the ceiling or behind paneling in finished basements.

· If your home has a crawl space, make sure it’s weather-tight and heated enough to keep pipes from freezing when the weather really gets cold. If you’ve had trouble with frozen pipes in a crawl space, wrap them with heat tape covered with insulation.

You can thaw frozen pipes quickly and safely with a hair dryer. We’re not allowed to work on a customer’s inside plumbing, so this action can save you time, inconvenience, and a plumber’s bill.

If you’re concerned about the impact of conventional electric generation on the environment, we have an option for you.

It’s called GreenWise Electric Power – environmentally friendly energy produced from renewable resources.  Our renewable energy portfolio includes electricity produced from landfill gas from the Granger Company’s Wood Road landfill in Lansing, and from two small hydroelectric facilities.

GreenWise Electric Power is available in blocks of 250 kilowatt-hours (KWH) per month. Each block adds $7.50 to your electric bill and is enough to meet about half the monthly energy needs of our average residential customer.  For more information click here, or call us at 702-6006.

Chances are, if a street light is out in your neighborhood, you know it before we do. We replace old street lights on a regular schedule, but if an individual light is out in your neighborhood, we depend on our customers to let us know.

You can report a street light outage quickly and easily. Just call the BWL Customer Service Department at 702-6006. A Customer Service Representative will take your name, address and phone number and the exact location of the street light as closely as you can identify it.

You can help save our trees and stop the spread of the Emerald Ash Borer and other woodland pests.

Moving any firewood out of emerald ash borer quarantined counties is punishable by fines. The following Michigan counties are included in this quarantine:

Help save Michigan’s 19 million acres of forest land. For more information, or to report possible infestation, call the Michigan Emerald Ash Borer Hotline at 1-866-325-0023. Or click here to visit their Web site.