What is a Water Service Line?
Water service lines are pipes that carry water from our mains, located in the streets, to individual homes and buildings. Service lines can be made of pipe material consisting of copper, cast iron, ductile iron, lead, or galvanized steel.
 
What Our Customers Need to Know: 
In 2021, the US EPA published revisions to the Lead and Copper Rule that required all Public Water Systems to complete an inventory of service lines connected to distribution systems.
 The purpose of the inventory is to address lead concentrations in drinking water, by developing an inventory to identify the location of lead service lines, and Galvanized Requiring Replacement.
We have no record of Lead Service Lines in Adams.
Galvanized Requiring Replacement: Any galvanized service line that is or has ever been downstream of a lead service line, or of an unknown material service line. These lines are included to be replaced because they have demonstrated the ability to absorb lead from a lead service line and release it in the future.
The EPA has required galvanized steel lines to be defined as Galvanized Requiring Replacement “ if the water system is unable to demonstrate that the galvanized service line was never downstream of a lead service line, it must presume there was an upstream lead service line”.
 The District's documentation of privately owned customer services does not date back since our incorporation in 1873, so we cannot meet the documentation requirement of EPA to proclaim service lines as “Galvanized Steel”, however, we are now required to list them as “Galvanized Requiring Replacement”.
10% of service lines within the District are Galvanized Requiring Replacement. Homeowners will be notified if applicable.
 
What are the steps we have completed?
We have been documenting service material in house on a daily basis since 2018 in preparation of the EPA revision that was published in 2021, as noted within our 2023 Consumer Confidence Report.
In August of 2024, we completed a full inventory of service lines, with no unknown services and began working with MassDEP for submittal in advance of the required deadline of October 16, 2024.
We have a fully implemented Corrosion Control Plan that stops the leaching of metals, as described within our 2022 Consumer Confidence Report.