Detecting Lead Service Lines

The city of Montreal in Quebec, Canada has estimated that up to 69,000 LSLs may exist in its territory on public and/or private land. In 2006, the city implemented a program to eliminate all LSLs within 20 years.

However, the utility has no reliable records to locate many of the LSLs, except in some recently rehabilitated areas. The most accurate number of potential LSL locations in 2010 was 134,654!

Systematic profiling of probable LSL sites would be costly and intrusive and is considered impractical. The cost of potholing to find an LSL can range anywhere from $500 to $5,000, depending on personnel, location, and time.

The alternative was to develop a reliable and cost-effective field method to locate homes with an LSL; as a result, a project was launched to develop and test a field protocol that would be used by crews during rehabilitation work. The protocol would measure Pb concentrations at the tap to detect the presence of an LSL.