Agencies Brushed Off Lead Warnings

"I was scared stiff, " he said. "We could have been missing the problem for a long time."

Cost Concerns

Treating water to make it safe became a more challenging task in 1991, when the EPA implemented a sweeping new rule that required all water utilities to test for lead and copper, both toxic to humans, especially young children. The EPA also required large utilities to do extensive water studies to determine the best way to control the water's corrosiveness, which can scrub and leach lead and copper off pipe linings, surfaces and fittings.

ECG Inc., an environmental consultancy based in Vienna, was hired in 1994 by the Corps to conduct the required tests at two treatment plants, Dalecarlia on MacArthur Boulevard and McMillan near Howard University. The consultants found that adding lime to water, as the Corps was doing, was "consistently worse" in curbing lead corrosion than the alternative: zinc orthophosphate. On a scoring range of 0 to 7 -- with 7 the best -- lime scored 3 and zinc orthophosphate scored a 6.

The ECG study, dated June 1994, nevertheless recommended that lime be used, noting in part that phosphates would cost more for water treatment and sewage treatment. The consultants said that if costs were not a problem, "it is recommended" that the Corps turn to phosphates.

ECG noted that the treatment plant's customers also raised concerns. WASA, which was then part of the District government and since 1996 has been a quasi-independent agency, argued that phosphates would significantly increase costs at its sewage treatment plant and make disposal of sludge more expensive. Michael Marcotte, the chief engineer for WASA, said last week that it potentially could cost millions of dollars to remove the phosphate that will be sent to the Blue Plains sewage treatment plant.

The aqueduct's Virginia customers, Arlington and Falls Church, also resisted adding phosphates because both had very little lead in their pipes and consequently no lead problem to solve. WASA, Arlington and Falls Church also worried that their sewage treatment plants might flush more phosphates into the Chesapeake Bay and affect its fragile ecosystem.

"We prefer that we not receive additional phosphorus," Lawrence Slattery, chief of Arlington County's water pollution control division, said last week. "We can handle it, but there are additional costs and there also are additional environmental impacts."

Instead, the consultants crafted a plan for the Corps to continue adjusting the water chemistry by adding lime, which makes the water less acidic.

At the EPA's Region III office in Philadelphia, which is responsible for the District's compliance with environmental regulations, officials decided to hold off on approving the Corps corrosion plan because of other pressing problems: In 1995 and 1996, toxic bacteria in the water had violated federal limits. The Corps continued to use lime and received interim approval from the EPA in 1997 and final approval in 2000.

As recently as two years ago, after WASA's own tests revealed high levels of lead, the EPA's regional office again endorsed the original water treatment plan, according to a May 2002 letter written by George Rizzo, the EPA official responsible for the District's drinking water.

Marcotte, who joined WASA in 1997, said he was not aware of the 1994 recommendations. He acknowledged that his team's ability to manage the lead problem may have been affected by other crises facing WASA at the time. The agency, overhauled and newly independent, was "hampered to the degree that we did not have a lot of history in this system and not a lot of background."

Richard A. Rogers, a top water official in the EPA's regional office, said the federal agency hired experts who initially recommended phosphates. There was a consensus, Rogers said, that using lime might be safer because phosphates could stimulate bacteria.

But Elder, the former EPA director, said it was "unbelievable" that the regional office approved the so-called "pH adjustment" using lime for an older city with extensive lead in its pipes.

"I don't know how that could have been approved," he said. "The [EPA] rule and the science warned that pH adjustment alone was probably not going to do the trick to control lead. Plus, Region III must have known that the District was filled with lead service lines."