What is Sarasota Countys approach to corrosion control?
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requires that water utilities add safe chemicals to protect drinking water supplies by prohibiting copper from pipes and lead from solder from leaching into and contaminating the water. These chemicals act to form a scale that lines pipes and prevents the release of copper and lead as caused by uniform corrosion of metal pipes. Two common methods widely used by utility companies in the United States employ carbonate or phosphate-based products to line the pipes. The impacts on preventing the formation of pinholes by these methods are not well understood. Until late 2003, our utilities system used a carbonate product as a corrosion inhibitor at our Carlton Water Treatment Facility. This method resulted in historically low copper and lead levels in our system. Because some utilities systems similar to Sarasota County reported reductions in pinhole-type corrosion after they converted to a phosphate-based product, we switched to a phosphate-ba
