Rainstone Water Heaters research program · Data: EPA national summary of state-reported LCRR inventories and utility-published inventories, accessed October 30, 2026
The short version
Every water system in America had homework due on October 16, 2024: a complete inventory of its service lines — the pipes connecting water mains to homes — classified by material, so that lead pipes can be found and replaced. Texas systems filed theirs with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. So how is Texas doing?
Here is the honest answer, in two parts: what can be verified today, and what isn’t published in a form anyone can check.
The national picture
EPA’s summary of the state-reported inventories puts the national scale at roughly 4 million lead and galvanized-requiring-replacement service lines — about 3 million confirmed by the states, plus an estimated 1 million more hiding among lines whose material is still recorded as “unknown.” Finding the unknowns is the work of the next several years, in Texas as everywhere else.
Texas systems that publish their own numbers
Most Texas systems filed their inventories with the state, as required — but filing with the regulator and publishing for residents are two different things. These are the Texas systems whose own published figures we could verify for this report:
| System | What it publishes | Verified figures |
|---|---|---|
| Tyler Water Utilities | Full inventory results + public map | Of ~40,000 lines: 142 lead (0.37%), 3,843 galvanized requiring replacement, 4,390 still being assessed |
| City of Round Rock | Inventory reported to EPA | 8,458 lines reported; 311 lead, galvanized-requiring-replacement, or not yet verified |
| City of Denton | Completed inventory + public lookup map | Published; summary counts not published in its water quality report |
| City of Schertz | Completed inventory on the city website | Submitted October 16, 2024 |
| San Antonio Water System | Lead service line program + inventory information | Published program information |
| Austin Water | Lead and drinking water information page | Published program information |
| Dallas Water Utilities | Lead service lines information page | Published program information |
Tyler is the standout example of doing this in the open: a public map, plain counts, and a small confirmed lead total — 142 lines out of about 40,000 — alongside the honest remainder still being assessed. That is what “progress” looks like when a system reports it properly.
What we could not verify — and won’t guess
There is currently no citable public table of Texas’s statewide totals: how many lead lines Texas has in total, or where Texas ranks among the states. EPA’s per-state summary is published through an interactive reporting tool rather than as downloadable data, and TCEQ publishes no statewide totals table. Rather than model a number, this page says so — and it will be updated with the Texas row, and its source vintage, when the state-level table is obtained. Any website that gives you a precise Texas lead-pipe ranking today is estimating. Ask it for its table.
What to do about your own line
You don’t need a statewide ranking to check your own home:
- Look up your address. If your system publishes a map (Denton and Tyler do, among others), your line’s recorded material may already be listed.
- Ask your water system what material is on file for your address, on both sides of the meter — inventories classify the utility side and the customer side.
- If your line is lead, galvanized, or “unknown,” ask what the system’s notification and replacement program offers; systems were required to notify customers served by lead, galvanized, and unknown lines after the 2024 inventory.
- Inside the home: lead can also come from older interior plumbing and solder. A plumber can identify line material at the shutoff, and certified testing is available if you want certainty.
Full methodology
Sources. EPA national summary of state-reported LCRR service line inventories (accessed October 30, 2026): ≈3 million confirmed lead + galvanized-requiring-replacement lines nationally, ≈1 million more estimated among unknown-material lines, ≈4 million best estimate. Utility-published inventories and pages retrieved October 30, 2026: Tyler Water Utilities (city website), City of Round Rock via EPA ECHO/SDWIS (PWSID TX2460003), City of Denton 2024 Water Quality Report, City of Schertz, SAWS, Austin Water, Dallas Water Utilities. Rule context: LCRR initial-inventory deadline October 16, 2024; Texas primacy agency TCEQ.
Rules (fixed before research began). State-level reporting only; no Texas city ranking and the spotlight is not a league table. A count is published only where the system itself (or EPA’s record of that system’s submission) publishes it. No modeled or extrapolated figures. Texas’s rank among states is published only when EPA’s state table is retrievable as data — it was not in this pass, so no rank is stated.
Limitations. Inventories are updated as systems reclassify unknown lines; counts are as published on the access date. Systems group categories slightly differently (Tyler separates galvanized-requiring-replacement; Round Rock’s EPA record combines lead/GRR/not-yet-verified in the figure used here); each system’s own grouping is preserved.
Data download. The verified spotlight table: lead-pipe-progress-texas-spotlight.csv.
Rainstone Water Heaters provides water heater services across the Dallas–Fort Worth, Austin, and San Antonio areas. This study was produced by Rainstone Water Heaters from public federal and utility-published sources; systems listed did not sponsor or endorse it.
