The Department of Environmental Protection’s Bureau of Safe Drinking Water, Operations and Monitoring Division conducts a Lead Ban Surveillance Program each year to promote compliance with the Pennsylvania Plumbing System Lead Ban and Notification Act. 

The act prohibits the sale or use of 50/50 or 85/15 tin-lead acid core or solid wire solders or any leaded solder that does not contain a warning statement on the label.  The Lead Ban Act also restricts the sale and use of all other leaded solders to non-plumbing use only.

Lead is a toxic metal that can have serious health effects even at low doses.  The regulation of lead in drinking water is intended to prevent lead containing materials from being used in the construction or modification of plumbing systems and to ensure the water delivered to consumers is non-corrosive to plumbing systems.

Each summer, DEP interns conduct surveillance activities and educate the plumbing supply industry about the requirements of the Lead Ban Act.  Surveillance activities include visiting hardware stores, home centers, and other retail facilities that sell solder to gather data used to determine whether banned solder is sold and whether restricted solder is properly labeled and is not sold in the plumbing section.

This year, 354 stores were surveyed  Of these, 252 stores sell solder.  Most of the 252 stores were selling lead-free solder and 52 percent sell only lead-free solder. 

Only 14 percent of the stores selling solder were in violation of the Lead Ban Act:  6 percent were selling banned solder and 7 percent were selling restricted solder in the plumbing section (the extra 1 percent is due to two stores that were selling both banned solder and restricted solder in the plumbing section; these stores were counted in both groups).

A copy of the 2014 Surveillance Report is available online.

In June legislation was signed into law sponsored by Sen. John Yudichak (D-Luzerne), Minority Chair of the Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee,  updating the lead content standards under the Plumbing System Lead Ban and Notification Act.

For more information, contact Sabrina Haydt at 717-772 2190 or send email to: shaydt@pa.gov.

(Reprinted in part from the September 4 edition of DEP News.  Click Here to sign up to receive your own copy of DEP News and view back issues.)

9/8/2014