Gripes pouring in on water-lead tests

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D.C. residents seeking to know whether their water has dangerous lead levels have become frustrated with the city's bureaucracy, D.C. Council members said yesterday.

Council member Adrian Fenty, Ward 4 Democrat, said he has received a flurry of e-mail complaints from constituents who have been waiting two to three months for the D.C. Water and Sewer Authority (WASA) to return the results of do-it-yourself testing kits.

"The majority of complaints are from Takoma and Chevy Chase, but I have the sense it's a citywide problem," Mr. Fenty said. "WASA's just not doing a good job picking up these tests and getting them back to people. The nuts and bolts part of the lead problem isn't working."

Spokesmen for other council members agreed. "We've had one constituent waiting since last September for test results, and another waiting since October," said a staffer in the office of council member Kathy Patterson, Ward 3 Democrat.

Sanja Partalo, a staffer for council member Phil Mendelson, at-large Democrat, said her office received a phone call in March from one Northwest resident whose test results had been lost by WASA contractors. The constituent, who did not want to be identified, said yesterday she thinks WASA simply is overwhelmed.

"They picked my test up in February and lost it," she said. "I did another test at the end of March, and got the results today. I think my call to the city council made all the difference."

Marilyn Stackhouse, a WASA public relations officer, said the agency has been distributing the test kits to anyone who asks for them.

"We say from the beginning that it will take approximately 30 days to get the results back," Miss Stackhouse said. "If it takes five days longer, cut us some slack. I'm not aware of people waiting very long."

Wendy B. Bader, an apartment dweller in the Tenleytown area of Northwest, said she had experienced delays at every step in the process. Ms. Bader said she picked up a test kit from WASA during the first week of March, then waited 38 days for the results.

"It worked out better than I thought, because I actually got the results," said Ms. Bader, a lawyer with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. "That's not the norm. If I didn't contact my council member, Kathy Patterson, I don't think I'd have gotten them at all."

She said the test results finally arrived on her doorstep Monday afternoon, eight days late. The results show that the lead levels in her apartment are well below the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) alert level of 13 parts per billion (ppb). One sample came out at 4.5 ppb and the other -- taken after running the tap water for a few minutes -- at 2 ppb.

Ms. Bader said she also is concerned that tenants are receiving less attention from the city than homeowners, who can choose to replace their pipes. "There's nothing requiring landlords to do anything. If the water was toxic sludge, my landlord wouldn't do anything."