The Minneapolis Public Works department is sending out annual notifications this month to residents with lead water service lines. Here’s what you need to know about lead pipes if you’re one of the 40,000 recipients who will get this letter.

Why is there so much lead here? 

Before a 1985 Minnesota law banned lead pipes in plumbing, many Minnesota homes used them to connect their faucets to the public water supply. Lead was cheap, durable and easy to work with. But lead exposure can cause serious health effects like hearing loss, central nervous system damage and learning delays in children. 

Almost 50 years after lead pipes were banned, thousands of Minnesota homes still have them. That’s because replacing lead pipes is a costly endeavor: prices average at $4,700 to retrofit a single home with different plumbing, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The most lead pipes in the state are found in Minneapolis, followed by St. Paul. 

In 2023, the Minnesota legislature passed a lead service line replacement law with a goal to replace all Minnesota lead lines by 2033. Minneapolis has been working toward this goal since then, using state and federal funding to provide free lead line replacements to residents. The law also required Minneapolis Public Works to notify residents if they have lead pipes, which are the letters people will receive this fall. 

“We send letters to everybody that has a lead service line every year,” said Annika Bankston, director of Minneapolis Water Treatment & Distribution Services.

“Unfortunately, we also have to include a lot of the risk language that’s required by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the state health department,” she said. “It’s not very consumer-friendly, I would say.” 

How worried should you be?

While you may have lead pipes in Minneapolis, it is very unlikely you are being exposed to lead through your drinking water. That’s because the city puts an anticorrosion compound into its water called orthophosphate, which creates a protective coating on the pipes and prevents the lead from flaking into the water as it travels to your faucet. 

But there are several steps Minneapolis residents can take to mitigate lead exposure risk.

The first is to get a lead test to understand exactly how much lead is in your drinking water (no amount of lead is safe to consume). Minneapolis Public Works provides free testing kits to every resident, available for order through their website. 

“We want to test your water and help demonstrate to you that your water’s safe to drink,” Bankston said. 

Related: With funding set to dry up, Minneapolis faces tough choices on lead pipe removal

If concerns remain, getting a water filter is another good option for residents. Portable filtration systems like a Brita can treat water for lead, although this option gets costly as filters need to be replaced every two months.

Simpler options include running the tap water for three to five minutes if it has sat unused for multiple hours or days to flush out built-up lead from the plumbing. Using cold water for drinking, cooking and making baby formula also mitigates risk, as lead dissolves in hot water more easily. 

As notification letters go out this month, the department anticipates an uptick in requests for lead test kits. 

“Unfortunately, a lot of people order them and never return them,” said George Kraynick, manager of Minneapolis Water Treatment & Distribution Services. His goal is to increase the number of completed kits, which are tested in a laboratory at the Fridley water treatment facility. Results are both emailed and mailed back to the customer. 

Lingering challenges

While testing and filtering drinking water are the best short-term strategies for mitigating risk, replacing lead pipes is the most effective way to permanently eliminate residents’ lead exposure risk from drinking water.

Minneapolis has an estimated 37,000 lead lines still in use throughout the city, a number it has been chipping away at since it initiated its free replacement program, paid for through state and federal funding. 

However, this funding will expire at the end of 2027, which means Minneapolis will likely miss the 2033 goal the Minnesota legislature set to get all lead pipes replaced. Getting the pipes replaced without these dollars is impossible in Minneapolis because the pipes that connect people’s homes to the main water line are privately owned, rather than owned by the city. Minneapolis is not allowed to use ratepayer dollars to replace this private infrastructure. 

“But we do treat the water so that it basically ensures any lead in the service lines shouldn’t be coming out of the faucet,” Bankston said. “So that’s a message we want to continue to get out there, that lead is not and will continue to not be coming from your service lines in Minneapolis.”

Claire Carlson is a Report for America corps member, covering drinking water for MinnPost and the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk. Report for America places talented journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues and regions.

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