Asheville residents still testing for lead in water 1 month after boil notice lifted

By Taylor Thompson

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    ASHEVILLE, North Carolina (WLOS) — Many Asheville residents have continued to test for lead in their water almost a month after the city’s boil water notice was lifted.

During a Buncombe County briefing on Monday, Dec. 9, Clay Chandler, spokesperson for the Water Resources Department, provided an update on the lead testing.

Chandler said that as of Monday, they had received more than 6,600 requests for lead test kits.

To meet the increase in demand for testing, Chandler said that they are working to contract with additional North Carolina state-certified laboratories. He said he will share those details once he is able to.

Chandler said that right now, they are currently providing one lead test kit per household and only to City of Asheville water customers. He clarified that it is not just customers within city limits, it is everybody who gets a water bill from the City of Asheville Water Resources.

The process for lead sampling typically takes around two to three weeks, but because of the increase in demand, Chandler said they are currently estimating a four-to-six-week turnaround time for test results.

They are prioritizing sampling the county and city schools that they have consistently tested in previous years, Chandler said, as schools serve the most vulnerable populations and in this case, children under the age of six.

Chandler said that they are also prioritizing lead sampling within a pre-existing compliance testing pool of homes.

“These are homes that we’ve tested multiple times over the years. These representative properties were most recently tested for lead and copper in July of 2024, so about two months before the storm,” he said.

He said that this allows for comparative data from before and after the restoration of the water system. The results of those pools will be made public, but they do have some results so far that Chandler was able to share during Monday’s briefing.

“Out of 159 samples taken from mid-to-late November, nine had detectable levels of lead on the first draw,” he said.

Keep in mind that the “first draw” is when water has sat in a pipe for a minimum of six hours. Chandler said that there have not been any recurring themes as far as the age of the house.

“We do have a pretty good idea that according to what the customers told us – that their water had been sitting in their pipes for quite some time even after the boil water notice was lifted [so] they weren’t using their water system very much,” he said.

“Of those nine, only three were either at or exceeded the action level of .015 parts per million,” he explained.

The most important part, according to Chandler, is that after flushing for 30 seconds out of the 159 samples, zero had detectable levels of lead. These samples were taken from private homes across the distribution system and Chandler said the results are similar to their regular compliant testing done every three years.

He explained how they are currently meeting their 98th percentile target, which means at least 90% of the first draw samples have had detectable levels of lead under the action limit of .015 parts per million.

Chandler said that the next step they are taking to help the process move faster is coordinating with Asheville Fire to set up pick-up and drop-off sites for lead test kits. Details including exact locations have not been finalized, but Chandler said he will share that information as soon as possible.

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