BlueConduit is excited to announce that the Virginia Office of Drinking Water (ODW) approved our Predictive Modeling approach to support service line inventory development and material classification, enabling BlueConduit-supported water systems to use predictive modeling to classify “unknown” service lines for their LCRR inventory.
Virginia ODW has published guidance for public water systems that outlines the approved methods for service line material classification for the Lead Service Line Inventory. In the guidance, statistical verification (also called predictive models and machine learning) are included as methods for material classification. Virginia requires the pre-approval of project plans for the use of statistical methods for service line material identification in the LSLI.
BlueConduit applauds VA ODW’s inclusion of statistical methods as an accepted verification method for LSLI, in line with the EPA’s LSLI guidance. Statistical analysis and predictive modeling offer a huge opportunity to public water systems in Virginia to efficiently and cost-effectively identify service lines as lead or non-lead without needing to devote the financial, human or technical resources to verify each service line segment..
The use of statistical analysis and predictive modeling built on the fundamental best practices in statistics allows water systems to be more precise in their compliance efforts, efficient in resource allocation, and transparent with their customers. For Virginia water systems, predictive modeling and statistical analysis offer the ability to classify “unknown” service lines as lead or non-lead without the need to physically inspect every line.
BlueConduit’s expert data science and public policy teams were confident that our approach to Service Line Classification, with a rigorous focus on accuracy and reliability, would be approved by ODW.
Our Statistical Methods Approach in Virginia includes:
- Background on the water system’s dataset, desk research to-date, and methods for determining service line material, in line with ODW’s guidance,
- Approach to data collection and inventory development
- Randomized Sampling Plan for Field Investigations (as required by size of system)
- Predictive modeling methodology, including the method for demonstrating the absence of lead as needed
- Results and documentation
BlueConduit is proud to support Virginia water systems as they work to efficiently manage LCR/LCRI compliance requirements and ensure, with the highest possible confidence, that all Virginia residents have access to clean, safe, lead-free drinking water.
