WILTON MANORS, Fla. – Letters sent to some Wilton Manors residents landed like a lead balloon.
Three-thousand residents got a letter from the city stating that pipes connecting older homes to the city’s main water line contained an “unidentified material” that “may possibly be lead” and cause a potential “increased risk of exposure to lead,” residents flooded city hall with calls.
“Are they saying, ‘By the way, you have lead?” resident Karen Sutton asked.
But Sutton noted, “They test our water and send (a) report and it looks OK.”
City officials said the water is indeed OK — there’s no cause for alarm — and ensuring safe drinking water is the reason behind the pipe inventory mandated by the Environmental Protection Agency. It’s a fact-finding mission to find out what the pipes are made of.
And by the way, the color of the water has nothing to do with it.
Resident Kevin Laura said, “It has always been yellow in South Florida no matter where I’ve lived. Here, Pompano, South Beach.”
The inventory will take the next few months to a year. Officials said residents in other South Florida cities may end up receiving similar letters.