Onondaga County’s top doctor has lead pipes. Her kids drink the water. Here’s her advice for Syracuse

Syracuse, NY — Onondaga County’s health commissioner is a mother of two school-aged children in a city house with lead water pipes.
“I’m a mom of an 8- and a 5-year-old, and I live in a house with a lead service line,” Dr. Kathryn Anderson said. “I can completely understand and appreciate why our community members want our children to avoid any source of lead.”
But her kids still drink the water, she said.
The county’s top doctor said she has a simple plan to keep her children safe:
“I run the water every morning for 30 seconds to a minute until it’s cold,” Anderson said. “This is really important because…this is a simple thing we all can do.”
That daily habit — running the cold tap before using the water — is enough to give her confidence that her kids won’t get lead poisoning from tap water.
“When you start your day, or your water has been sitting for more than six hours, just run your faucet until it’s cold,” she said. “That has the benefit of pulling in fresh water from the water mains that has not been sitting in contact with lead service lines overnight.”
Going forward, Anderson said she will also use a water filter that cleans out lead, akin to the thousands that her department and the city will begin distributing to residents after a lead-pipe scare over the summer.
But it’s the simple act of making sure that her water is fresh from the street that gives her the most confidence.
Here’s why that is so important: Water that sits around in lead pipes for hours can record astronomically high lead levels.
Syracuse’s dangerously high levels found at homes over the summer were partially caused by workers taking water from garden hoses that had been sitting in pipes for long periods, Anderson said.
High lead levels can cause brain damage, especially in young children, who can suffer a host of long-term behavioral and health issues.
The health commissioner made it clear she’s sympathetic to parents who are concerned after tests this summer showed Syracuse’s water had lead levels worse than during the crisis in Flint, Michigan.
But she also believes the more recent results, which show lead levels back to historical norms. She called the latest results “reassuring.”
“There’s a level of fear or concern that we’re in some kind of crisis,” she said. “And that’s simply not the case.”
To back up her claim, Anderson pointed to lead testing on 400 city preschoolers in the past year that showed only four with any measurable amounts of lead.
While that’s four too many, the health commissioner said that a true water crisis, like Flint, would have caused much higher lead levels in young children.
She also pointed out that the lead levels in Syracuse’s water have remained consistent for nearly two decades, outside of the abnormal results this summer.
The latest, lower results “put us back where we have been for years,” she said. “Nothing has significantly changed.”
Anderson said she isn’t caught up in the lead levels at each individual house. She didn’t recommend homeowners paying to get their water commercially tested for lead, for example.
Instead, the question is whether there is a lead pipe bringing water into the home. If so, she and experts say, there’s a risk of lead getting into the water.
Only replacing the lead pipe can cure the underlying concern permanently, experts say.
But Anderson hasn’t paid the $10,000 or more to have her lead service line replaced.
Instead, she’s relied on her strategy of letting the water run each morning before use. It’s a simple, proven and effective way to get safe water from a lead pipe, she said.
The city has about 14,000 lead service lines bringing water to Syracuse homes. The city is planning to replace about 3,000 next year and must replace them all in the next 10 years.
Many homes built before 1940 still have lead service lines.
The city has an interactive map showing which homes it knows have lead pipes. However, the status of thousands of homes remains unknown.
The city is asking residents to fill out a short survey to determine whether their service line needs replacing. (The questionnaire requires uploaded pictures of a residence’s water meter and service line.)
How do you find out if your house has a lead service line? Watch this video:
Making sure the public understands the nuances of the lead problem is something that Anderson admitted was a struggle.
“In our community, lead is a problem. Full stop,” she said.
But she also was quick to show her confidence in the city’s water supply as a whole: “Yes, the water in Syracuse is safe to consume,” she said.
Beyond lead water pipes, Anderson also noted that her old house — like thousands of others in Syracuse — has lots of lead paint. That’s an even bigger concern to the public health official.
Experts say that inhaling lead paint dust is significantly more dangerous than drinking normal quantities of water from lead pipes.
To combat poisoning from lead paint, Anderson said she routinely wipes down her doors, windows and other high-touch areas with a wet paper towel or a mop.
That reduces the chance of any lead paint particles getting into the air, she said.
“People want the best for their kids,” Anderson said. “And lead is a tough one.”
Staff writer Douglass Dowty can be reached at [email protected] or (315) 470-6070.