Have you ever wondered about the journey of your drinking water and the processes that ensure its safety? Kate Dietz, director of utilities for the City of Tyler demystifies the science and systems behind Tyler’s water. She goes beyond the surface, discussing everything from common yet potentially carcinogenic compounds found in our environment to the material of your water service line.
Have you considered what components go into making water service lines? It’s a crucial question in maintaining a safe and efficient water system. Dietz explores the city’s survey about this and how your participation can aid in building a comprehensive inventory, an EPA requirement.
MIKE LANDESS: Like a lot of thriving cities in Texas, Tyler has been working to adjust for the growing demands for services and updated infrastructure. But here are a couple of questions you may have. What are PFA’s in the water, and what material is your water service line made of? I’m Mike Landess for UT Tyler Radio. To shed some light on all this is the director of utilities for the City of Tyler, Kate Dietz. Welcome, Kate.
KATE DIETZ: Thank you.
LANDESS: Now, PFA, that’s polyfluoroalkyl, or however you pronounce that. What are they, and how are we doing, according to the EPA in terms of our water supply?
KATE DIETZ: That’s just a general term for all of the different fluorinated compounds. PFA’s are actually right now fairly common in our environment around us. They have found at certain levels that they’re cancer causing. Most of these are compounds that were-They’re man-made compounds that were-
LANDESS: Like plastics or…
DIETZ: Kind of like plastics. But what they were, what they’re in, I guess I should say, is a lot of your — most people are familiar with non-stick pans, right, called Teflon-coated made it so that you could cook your egg without you know it sticking to the pan, right? Well, a component in the Teflon that was used in those pans that were produced by companies like 3M, DuPont and so forth, those are PFAs and so you know, nowadays most cookware is because they found that these are potentially carcinogenic, most pans are put together without that particular, without those particular compounds, but it’s in firefighting foam. If you’ve ever used ScotchGuard, it’s a major component of ScotchGuard.
LANDESS: It’s all around us.
DIETZ: Exactly. Right. I remember my mother when I was younger, ScotchGuarding her couch, our couch, you know, to keep it from staining.
LANDESS: ScotchGuarded mine. I got a cat.
DIETZ: And so you know water, anything water repellent, a lot of water-repellent clothing, boots. Firefighters are concerned about it because a lot of their, some of their gear and then firefighting foam. It’s found in that. So obviously, it’s something that’s going to be in and around our lives constantly. It’s going to end up in our drinking water source because it’s either something that we’ve consumed or it’s something that’s on our bodies.
LANDESS: But recent testing shows that we’re doing pretty well in terms of the amount that’s available in our water.
DIETZ: Right. Yeah, so in the recent tests that we’ve done, we’ve been testing under that, like I said, UCMR5 since the beginning of 2023. We’ve tested for 29 different compounds. And all of those compounds, for the first two quarters of tests that have come back, have all been in the “non-detect range,” meaning that they are below the detectable limit of the compound. And there was one component in one of the tests that came back slightly above “non-detect,” and that is actually not one of the components or compounds that’s going to be regulated by the TCEQ. I’m sorry, the EPA. So the EPA at this time has kind of chosen six of these particular compounds that they’re going to, that they’re planning on regulating and have proposed regulations for. So even that one compound that we did have come back from our treated water slightly above the detect, it’s still less than that amount that the EPA is proposing to regulate.
LANDESS: Well, it sounds like you’re trying to be ahead of the curve here, that if these regulations come along, that you’ll be prepared to be able to deal with that.
DIETZ: Right, and that’s the other thing we’ve decided to do is we are testing our source water. So the tests for the UCMR5 are from our entry points, from our treated water, from both Lake Palestine and Golden Road. Well, to go a step further, we decided to test at our source water, which is Lake Tyler and Lake Palestine, to see if there is, if we determine that there are any there. But likely if we’re not seeing it in the treated water, we won’t be seeing it in the source water, either.
LANDESS: OK, you got a survey that’s going on right now, and this is another item that has to do with health and water and that sort of thing and that is identifying the material that the water pipe that comes from the, to your water meter, what that material is, whether it’s lead or copper or whatever. First of all, I understand the survey would be something that would be important for the city to know as you’re building the infrastructure and trying to keep the water safe. How in the world do I find out what that’s made out of? Do I have to hire somebody to come do it, or how does that work?
DIETZ: No, what we’re asking in this first phase is that if you’re curious, and you either have that information in your head based on work that a plumber has previously done, a plumber’s been out to your house and done some work. They might know, you could call them, or you can go digging. I did that last weekend. It was actually quite a bit easier than I thought it was going to be, where you just kind of go in there and do some hand digging with hand tools on 18 inches on either side of your meter box. Because what we’re looking for is you’ve got your meter box, and then you’ve got the water service line that is the city’s responsibility, that goes from the water main in the road or the right-of-way to the meter box, and then you’ve got the part of the service line that’s after the meter that goes to your house. And so what we’re trying to determine, is we’re trying to determine what materials those are for our inventory, because the EPA-that’s another EPA requirement that in 2021, they came out with that said, we need to develop an inventory of all the services in our system. So if the city of Tyler and our customers can help us in making those determinations, it will help overall with the cost of the project. If they’re able to kind of take that on and help their community members, and if we have a really good inventory going into when we apply for federal funding, we may be able to pass that funding on to those homeowners who are going to need to replace their water service line on their side of the meter.
LANDESS: So, let’s talk about that. How-you’ve gotten your digging your 18 inches on either side. How do I know what that material may have? Copper would be obvious enough, but lead or whatever, how would you know?
DIETZ: The copper. You know, we say it would be like kind of a bronze material right? But actually, sitting in the ground, it’s going to be very, it’s going to be green. You know, you’ve seen copper oxidized. If it’s lead, the difference- The one thing that the distinction you’re going to want to make is there’s galvanized, and there’s lead. They both are gray. Galvanized is magnetic, so you can stick a magnet to galvanized pipe. Lead pipe is non-magnetic, but if you scratch it, it gets really shiny silver. So, you scratch it with like a quarter or something like that, and you’ll be able to determine if it’s lead. Plastic should be pretty straightforward. It’ll be white, blue, something like that.
LANDESS: So, this is, and to get a part of the survey, there’s a link that you can go to to fill the survey out, right? It goes to the city.
DIETZ: Right, and so there’s, there’s a QR code on the actual printed-out survey. If you get your, if you get your water bills in the mail, you’ll receive a paper copy of it. But if you don’t want to go through the paperwork of doing that, all you have to do is scan the QR code, go online, fill it out. You’ll go to our website also, which will give you a lot of different information. Frequently asked questions about this whole initiative. Like I said, it’s a nationwide initiative that we’re taking part, that we’re required to take part in, but if we can get our community to really help us out here in this first step of it, I think it’ll make things go smoother as we progress through it.
LANDESS: Our guest has been City of Tyler Director of Utilities Kate Dietz. To hear this conversation again or to share it, go to KVUT.org. I’m Mike Landess for UT Tyler Radio.
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