Although many people have concerns over the presence of lead and copper in their drinking water, few know what the United States Environmental Protection Agency actually said about the presence of lead and copper in drinking water.
Hence the need for this water testing blog entry.
“Lead and copper enter drinking water primarily through plumbing materials. Exposure to lead and copper may cause health problems ranging from stomach distress to brain damage. On June 7, 1991, EPA published a regulation to control lead and copper in drinking water. This regulation is known as the Lead and Copper Rule (also referred to as the LCR or 1991 Rule).
The treatment technique for the rule requires systems to monitor drinking water at customer taps. If lead concentrations exceed an action level of 15 ppb or copper concentrations exceed an action level of 1.3 ppm in more than 10% of customer taps sampled, the system must undertake a number of additional actions to control corrosion. If the action level for lead is exceeded, the system must also inform the public about steps they should take to protect their health and may have to replace lead service lines under their control.” source
Testing for Lead and Copper in Drinking Water
For those wishing to test for the presence of lead and/or copper in drinking water, you may want take a look at the following easy-to-use, inexpensive home water quality test kits:
- Water Metals Check — Great for letting homeowners know if their water contains ANY metals such as copper, cadmium, zinc, iron, cobalt, nickel, etc. Water Metals Check will not identify which metal the water contains, but it does give homeowners the ability to find out if they ought to perform more quantitative water testing for metals.
- Lead in Water — Very simple test which indicates whether water contains lead in concentration of 15ppb or greater.
- John’s Copper — Excellent home water quality test kit for detecting copper and ONLY copper in drinking water. The manufacturer of this product claims it will not yiled false positives if exposed to other metals and that the test will detect levels of copper in drinking water as low as 0.05ppm.
