Pittsburgh Lead Crisis Sparks Filter Distribution

Fear over lead contamination of tap water in Pittsburgh is compelling the city utility to distribute thousands of filtered water pitchers to customers around the city.

Mayor William Peduto announced the distribution plan this week after months of lead contamination concerns among Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority (PWSA) customers.

"After decades of disinvestment, my administration and the PWSA are committed to solving lead issues once and for all. Filters are only a first step of many to come, but be sure we will solve this problem and give residents the safe and reliable water system they deserve," Peduto said in a statement.

The city considered installing water filters within home water lines, but it was too costly, according to WXPI. Instead, the city will distribute certified half-gallon pitchers.

The city is focusing its filter giveaway on customers who are receiving partial lead service line replacements as well as households with expectant mothers and young children. Others may also request a filter.

“Mayor Peduto has called the filters a stopgap measure that could involve some 80,000 individual devices. The administration wants recipients to have enough filtration to last the equivalent of six months, Sam Ashbaugh, the city’s chief financial officer, has said,” the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.

Local officials have called the lead problem in Pittsburgh a “public health crisis,” WXPI previously reported.

Around 20,000 homes in Pittsburgh have lead service lines, according to KDKA.

“Between 20 and 30 percent of those lines are suspected of leaching high levels of lead. That means people in up to 6,000 homes and apartment houses are drinking water with dangerous lead levels,” KDKA reported.

The water authority is struggling financially and cannot fund a major infrastructure overhaul on its own.

“The mayor estimates replacing those lines at more than $400 million and that the PWSA has neither the money nor the structure to accomplish that,” the report said.

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