The best way to find out whether your water has lead in it, is to have it tested. Please call the Water Company for a list of approved laboratories in the area that you can call to have your water tested for led.

Your local public water supply is required to test for lead on a regular basis. You can call them or ask for the latest issue of their Consumer Confidence Report (this will list all the constituents the supplier must test for and whether or not any contaminants were found). If you live in an older house, one which may have lead pipes or lead based solder call our lab for specific instructions and special sample bottles to have a sample analyzed.

A blood test is the only reliable means of assessing a child's exposure to lead. Often, a child with an elevated blood lead level will exhibit no apparent symptoms. But, even low level exposure can result in lowered mental capabilities if the exposure is sustained.

People with high levels of lead in their bodies often do not seem sick. The symptoms that occur are very general and can happen for many reasons. Your local public health clinic or family doctor can do a simple blood test to find out if there is too much lead in the blood. This blood test involves taking a sample of blood from your child's finger or a vein in the arm. If the blood sample shows a problem with lead, more testing will be done.

There is no lead in our water when it leaves the plant. And while we meet the federal lead standards, a small percentage of the homes in our system may have lead levels that exceed the level considered safe for small children. Since we first tested for lead in the early 1990s, we have continually adjusted our treatment at the plant in an effort to lower the number of homes exceeding the lead standard. The results have been excellent.

Most lead in drinking water supplies leaches from the plumbing in our homes, including lead service lines, lead-based solder (used to join copper plumbing), and faucets. To reduce your exposure to lead, make sure to flush your pipes for several seconds before using the water for drinking or cooking.

Since June,1986 the SAFE DRINKING WATER ACT required the use of lead-free pipe, solder and flux in the installation or repair of plumbing systems connected to public water systems. Prior to that time, most solder contained about 50% lead. The law gave states until 1988 to enforce the new limitations. However, there is evidence that some plumbers continued to use lead solder for some time.

Many times the lead poisoned child does not have any symptoms. The only way to find out if a child has lead poisoning is to do the lead test.

The United States EPA sets the standards for what is considered a safe exposure to lead in drinking water. Federal law requires municipal water utilities to monitor tap water lead levels in a percentage of the households they served. Corrosion control treatment must be installed if more than 10% of these households have had levels greater than the action level of 15 parts per billion. Utilities are required to replace lead service lines within the next 15 years if a problem persists.

No! In South Bend, a majority of the customer owned pipes and service lines are made of lead. Fortunately, the harder water in this area creates a calcium carbonate coating in the service lines. This buildup, known as scaling, is essentially a barrier preventing lead from leaching into the water. Also, the South Bend Water Works is in complete compliance with the strict regulations of the EPA's mandated lead and copper rule. Our water has been given the highest quality lead and copper rating.

The surest method is to use the services of a certified lead-based paint inspector and risk assessor. An inspector can tell you if there is lead in the home; a risk assessor can tell you the extent of the hazard.

a. Lead is a highly poisonous metal, present naturally in the environment, which was used for many years in products found in and around our homes.

a. On the job (ex. Home renovators, police who use weapons, battery manufacturers). If you work with lead, you could bring it home on your hands or clothes. Shower and change clothes before coming home. Launder your work clothes separately from the rest of your family's clothes. f. In folk remedies that contain lead, such as "farouk" (Middle Eastern remedy for teething), "pay-loo-ah" (fever and rash treatment in Southeast Asia) and "azarcon.

Lead rarely occurs naturally in water. Lead may not be in your drinking water, but if it is, it typically enters your water after it leaves your local treatment plant or well. Lead is dissolved in water by corrosion of lead pipe or lead soldered pipe joints commonly found in the water distribution system. Even if your home contains lead or lead soldered plumbing, you are not necessarily at risk.

in-depth study and ongoing analysis have shown that the ACWD water supplied to your home contains no detectable lead. Our source water contains no lead and no lead service lines are used in our service area. Our detection limit for lead is less than two parts per billion.

The water main in the road will not be made of lead - usually it's cement-lined cast iron or sometimes plastic - but the connection from the pipe in the street to the pipe to your house, the pipe connecting it to your house, or the pipes within your house might be. In older homes the household pipes might be lead, copper, or galvanized iron. Joints on lead pipes are usually very bulky compared with the relatively neat fittings of copper and galvanized iron.