Lead lurks among 50,000 St. Louis water pipes. City officials need residents to help identify them

Even in tiny amounts, lead can be dangerous. In St. Louis, centuries of plumbing run for miles beneath our feet, delivering water to homes through 113,000 service lines. But even after testing tens of thousands of those lines for lead, city officials say 50,000 remain unidentified. In this episode, we go behind those numbers with Spencer Gould, special assistant to St. Louis City’s water commissioner. Gould explains why lead runs through some parts of the city's water infrastructure and how a new rule issued by the EPA 2024 started a 10-year race to identify and replace those pipes.