H2 Uh-Oh

By Nancy Black

I was so impressed with the City of Dallas, until I wasn’t.

I was so impressed when the city reached out to my neighbors and me regarding the erosion in the creek bed behind our homes. We learned the city has hired a fancy engineering firm to build an erosion control barrier.

Our houses line a portion of the Dixon Branch creek, which flows into White Rock Lake. The walls of the canyon behind our houses are eroding away quickly. 

Every time we have a good ole fashioned gully washer of a rainstorm, the huge boulders lining the creek shift and switch positions. The rushing water washes away more and more bedrock from the sides of the creek, leaving our back yards dangling from above with no support below. 

Picture those houses you see on the news dangling over the edge of a water source about to fall in. Our houses aren’t nearly that bad — yet. So, I was very happy to see and hear from the city engineers about the erosion control project during a neighborhood meeting. Work is expected to start next summer.

After the meeting, I checked my mailbox and found a letter from the City of Dallas. I figured it had to do with the erosion project. 

No. 

The letter from the city informed me I may have lead in my water pipes! 

“We have determined that your water service line material is ‘Unknown,’” the Dallas Water Utilities letter stated. My pipes are either: lead or galvanized requiring replacement. Or neither. Hence the “unknown”.

“Exposure to lead can cause serious health effects in all age groups,” the notice said. “Do not use hot water from the tap for drinking, cooking or making baby formula,” and that boiling my water does nothing to eliminate the lead content.

Unlike the creek bed, though, which the city is fixing at no cost to homeowners, if old lead pipes are on the “resident owned” portion, they must be removed and replaced by the homeowners! The city included QR codes on the letter, where homeowners could find out how to locate and identify the material in the water service lines. 

I scanned the code, and it took me to the Environmental Protection Agency’s website to a page dedicated to buying water filters and pitcher filters. The page had nothing to do with identifying my water lines. 

It only explained that water filters must be “certified” by the American National Standards Institute, otherwise consumers cannot trust that their filtered water is truly filtered.

Rumor has it, the City of Dallas will eventually inspect all the city water lines and let residents know if their pipes are unsafe. That process could take years.  

Thank you, City of Dallas, in advance, for fixing the eroding shoreline of the creek behind our homes. But when it comes to the “lead in pipes” letter, you let me down. All I learned was that my drinking water may not be safe, that I need to buy a certified water filter for all my faucets and that the city is not going to help me resolve the situation anytime soon. 

I was so impressed with the City of Dallas, until I wasn’t.