No Lead Found!

OCTOBER 2024 UPDATE:  After a year and a half investigation and research on our water service lines, the City can now verify that there is NO lead in our water service line materials. Using the OHA guidelines, Sandy has completed a statistical analysis of the unknowns in the inventory. This involved inspecting over 20% of unknowns at random to determine that no lead services can be found in Sandy. City crews inspected more than double this number and found no lead service lines. City crews will continue to inspect unknown services until this inventory has all been inspected.
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The City of Sandy is proudly announcing that through an exhaustive research effort led by our Public Works Department, there is no lead in our water service lines that carry water from the main water pipelines to our customers’ homes and businesses. In 2023, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced revised rules to ensure and reduce the exposure to lead through drinking water. Our recent effort was a result of the EPA’s revised rule improvements. We relied on historical records, permit records, on-site visual inspections, and customer feedback to create a water service line inventory that documents our results. A full inventory will soon be available on our website.

This project took over 18-months and required the city to complete visual inspections on some of our older homes in Sandy. No lead was found, even on older properties dating back as far as 1901.

Even though no lead was found in the public water service lines, the city still warns that homes could be outfitted with lead fittings and lead solder (fusible metal alloy) inside the home. If your fittings were installed in 1985 or earlier, we strongly suggest utilizing the tests below to determine if the fitting possibly contains lead.

• Scratch Test – Scratches easily
• Magnet Test – Magnet will stick
  * If the pipe is soft and easily scraped, silver in color, and if a magnet doesn’t stick, it is lead.
  * If a magnet sticks, this portion of the service line is galvanized steel.
• Threads – No threads
  * Please note that the tests above don’t guarantee the fitting or solder contains lead.

In addition, any faucet purchased before 1997 may be constructed of brass containing up to 8% lead. If you need further guidance on how to determine if you have lead in your fittings or solder, or you want additional information on water testing, please email our Public Works Department at pw@ci.sandy.or.us.