The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requires all water utilities to perform a Lead Service Line Inventory and to provide the results by October 16, 2024. This requirement is in place to help lower the risk of exposure to lead in the nation’s drinking water.
In the image below, the service line is the smaller pipe that runs from the water main to the water meter, which is owned by Bellevue Utilities, and from the water meter to the home, which is owned by the homeowner.
Bellevue Utilities has never used lead in service lines from the water main to the water meter, and the use of lead service lines was banned in all of King County in 1968. However, homes built before 1968 could have lead pipes from the water meter to the house.
Bellevue Utilities has compiled an inventory of service lines, both owned by Bellevue Utilities and by the homeowner. However, historically Bellevue Utilities has not collected material data on the homeowner side of the service line; therefore, these will be shown as “Unknown” in the inventory. We are notifying our customers of this uncertainty. In the future, we will be working to update our data with both Bellevue Utilities side and customer side service line material information to reduce the number of unknown service line typed by material.
In 2017, 2020 and again in 2023, Bellevue Utilities conducted lead sampling from residential taps ranging from 52-68 homes in accordance with the current US EPA’s Lead and Copper Rule. On all three sampling events, none of the samples was above the action level. Occasional low-level detections are associated with customer’s fixtures and customer’s sampling techniques.
Service Line Locator
Use the above Service Line Locator online tool to find related information for homes and businesses.
How you can help. If you have additional information about your service line, such as the material or the date of replacement, please call the Utilities Department at 425-452-7840 or email Utilities Operations and Maintenance.