We commend the Office of the Inspector General for taking the time to learn about the monitoring protocols that DC Water follows in the District to comply with the EPA Lead and Copper Rule (LCR). The OIG found DC Water was fully compliant with all LCR monitoring requirements and the audit of LCR compliance monitoring reports from the past five years contained no errors. 

We hope our response included in the OIG report will enable greater understanding of our efforts to comply with these standards, and provide information that will empower our customers to take steps necessary to reduce their risk of exposure to lead in water.

OIG’s review of the District’s service line inventory identified an issue with the number of unknown service line materials in the District, particularly on the private side. For the past few years, DC Water has been collecting information from customers about the pipe coming into their home and using water quality testing to help determine some of these unknown service line materials.

DC Water also makes strong efforts to inform the public of the presence or potential presence of lead service lines. In 2016, DC Water published an interactive map of our service line inventory, including links to additional information about service line replacement options and free lead test kits.

We will continue these efforts to improve available service line data, and encourage participation in our lead testing programs.

Last fall we sent letters to over 11,000 customers with known lead service lines to help to raise awareness and encourage enrollment in our Voluntary Lead Service Pipe Replacement Program.

The response has been tremendous. We understand addressing lead sources is a shared responsibility, and we will continue to prioritize our work with customers to remove lead service lines.

To that end, DC Water applauds the DC Council’s approval of the historic Lead Water Service Line Replacement and Disclosure Amendment Act of 2018 that, if funded, would greatly reduce and redress partial lead service line replacements, and provide customers with resources to facilitate replacement on private property.

DC Water's response to OIG's list of recommendations can be found in Appendix D, page 39 of the full report.