Minnesota homeowners are discovering they have lead pipes. Here’s what they can do.

Caitlin Johnston got a “jarring” letter in early November that said a lead pipe carried water into her house.

Johnston and her husband had just closed on their home in the Highland Park neighborhood of St. Paul in September. She had a 5-month-old son. And now she wondered whether tainted water might affect her family.

“It was, you know, yet another thing to learn, and it made me very anxious,” she said. Looking for advice, she reached out to her utility, her son’s pediatrician and the Minnesota Star Tribune.

Thousands of Minnesotans have gotten similar letters this fall — but the notice doesn’t mean you’re automatically drinking dirty water. Here’s what to know if you find out a lead line connects your home with the water system.

Utilities have largely replaced lead water mains. But the privately owned service lines for homes are sometimes still lead. The Biden administration announced in 2021 that it would update a federal rule to speed up the process of finding and removing lead pipes.

The rule gave utilities an October deadline to alert customers with lead and galvanized steel lines. A searchable map is available at maps.umn.edu/LSL.

Under federal law, water utilities must identify and replace all lead and galvanized steel lines by 2037. Minnesota has set a non-binding goal to do so by 2033.

The makeup of about 19% of all the service lines in the state is still unknown, because of gaps in the records used to develop the inventory. The Minnesota Department of Health recommends contacting your water provider if you’re in that situation.

To check your line yourself, find where the water line enters your home. Scratch the pipe with a coin. If it scratches easily and the metal underneath looks shiny and silver, it’s probably lead.

If the pipe doesn’t scratch easily or clearly appears to be copper, that doesn’t mean you’re out of the woods. Minneapolis and Duluth are both discovering that many galvanized steel lines are connected to a copper pipe that feeds into the home. These galvanized lines also carry the risk of leaching lead into water from joints, so they must also be replaced.

Some communities are finding that their problem is entirely galvanized steel — in Winona, there are about 2,700 lines that need replacement, but none is entirely lead, said Aaron Hauser, water superintendent.

The only way to know how much lead is in your water is to test it. Customers should check with their water utility first to see if their system offers this test for free. Otherwise, MDH offers advice on how to find an accredited lab.

No amount of lead is safe to consume, but utilities must respond if tests exceed the EPA’s “action level” of 15 parts per billion. The agency has proposed lowering that level to 10 ppb.

Johnston has already sampled her water, which is a free service provided by St. Paul Regional Water Services. She won’t have the results for a few weeks and is using bottled water in the meantime.

Even with a lead line, it’s possible there isn’t any lead in your water. That’s because many water systems use additives that coat the inside of pipes. This minimizes how much lead can leach out.

Of the top five communities with the most lead and galvanized lines, Minneapolis, St. Paul Regional Water Services and St. Cloud all use this method, known as “corrosion control.”

In Duluth, the water system does not use corrosion control additives, but it does offer free water filtering pitchers certified to remove lead. The pitchers and replacement filters are free to all customers with a lead, galvanized or unknown material line, said Cyndi Falconer, utilities program coordinator.

Winona also doesn’t use corrosion control, and tests in the system have shown up with very low or no lead in the past, Hauser said. The city does offer free sample bottles for those who want to test their water, but Winona doesn’t cover the cost of the test.

There are several ways to reduce lead in your water. Run the tap for a few minutes before using it for drinking or cooking, and only use cold water for consumption. Bathing and showering isn’t a concern, because lead in water cannot be absorbed through the skin.

It’s also a good idea to remove and clean the aerators, or screens, at the end of a water tap, where particles can settle.

Water pitchers can also be effective in removing lead from drinking water, but users need to find the right kind and make sure they’re replacing filters on a regular schedule. The EPA recommends that consumers only buy filters that say they reduce lead and are certified to the NSF/ANSI Standard 53.

Finally, it’s possible that fixtures inside your home are leaching lead. Annika Bankston, division director of water treatment and distribution in Minneapolis, warned that kitchen and bathroom faucets made before 2000 may contain lead. Concerned homeowners might want to change out these older features.

Generally, lead poisoning “is much more critical to diagnose and treat in children than adults, because it has such a terrible effect on neurodevelopment,” said Jon Cole, the medical director of the Minnesota Regional Poison Center.

Most pediatricians should be able to test a child for lead with a finger prick, Cole said. If that test is negative, the child is in the clear. If it’s positive, a blood draw is required to confirm the results.

From there, the amount of lead will determine whether treatment it appropriate. But the most important thing is to figure out where the exposure is coming from and stop it, Cole said. After that, levels in the body will go down.

In Minnesota, drinking water is not the biggest source of lead in children’s blood. Older homes with lead paint present the highest risk, because children can breathe in lead dust particles or eat flaking paint chips, according to the state health department.

Anyone with additional questions about lead poisoning can call the poison center at 1-800-222-1222.

Each water utility is setting its own schedule for replacements, but they all have to follow the same guidelines. Utilities must prioritize areas with many children under age 5, areas where children have high blood lead levels, and low-income and disadvantaged neighborhoods. Water systems are also supposed to target areas where planned roadwork could provide easier access to buried pipes.

Duluth has an online map showing its projects for 2025 and will update it in the spring with projects slated for 2026, Falconer said.

In St. Paul, the water system has rated the neighborhoods it serves from 0 to 10, with 10 the highest priority projects. The utility may post those ratings online, and customers can call to get an idea of where they are in the queue, said Project Manager Brent Marsolek. The system is still working through the 10s, he said.

In most cases, the best bet is to call your utility. But water managers don’t have every project planned out for the next decade, and they may not know yet when they will reach your home.

It’s also important to make sure you respond promptly if the utility reaches out to you by mail. Bankston said 10% of the people Minneapolis contacts for a line replacement don’t respond, or don’t consent to the project.

Homeowners can pay out of pocket to replace their own service lines, which costs between $8,000 and $10,000, Bankston said. While there’s significant public money funding the utilities’ replacements, individuals cannot apply directly. Minnesota has already pledged $240 million, in addition to $215 million over the next five years from the the federal Infrastructure, Investment and Jobs Act. All that money will be sent directly to water systems.

Don’t expect a reimbursement. The only way to get the cost of replacement covered is to wait for your local program to reach your property.