Lead service line
Pipe used to connect water main to users
A lead service line (LSL, also known as lead service pipe, and lead connection pipe) is a pipe made of lead which is used in potable water distribution to connect a water main to a user's premises.
Lead exposure is a public health hazard as it causes developmental effects in fetuses, infants, and young children. It also has other health effects in adults. According to the World Health Organization, the presence of lead service lines is the most significant contributor of lead contamination in drinking water in many countries.
The most certain way to eliminate lead exposure in drinking water from the lead service lines is to replace them with pipes made from other materials. However, replacement is time-consuming and costly. The difficulty is exacerbated in many locations by ownership structure with a shared responsibility between water utilities and property owners, which requires cooperation between the two entities. Some water utilities employ corrosion control as a short-term solution while working through long-term replacement projects. A potential issue with corrosion control is constant monitoring of its effectiveness. There have been widespread lead exposures resulting from failures of corrosion control, such as the Flint water crisis.
The public source identifies “Lead service line” as pipe used to connect water main to users. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Lead, service and line.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q85776069. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Lead service line” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.