Jim Thorpe Borough residents are being asked to fill out a survey as part of the municipality’s attempt to identify lead water lines.

Borough Manager Maureen Sterner said each property owner who receives water service from the borough was issued the survey, which is also available through a link on the borough website.

“The borough is exploring funding for grants for the removal of existing lead lines and the survey will help us identify and ultimately remove those lines from the existing infrastructure,” Sterner said.

Jim Thorpe’s efforts are part of a push from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to ensure safe drinking water for consumers.

The borough is working with Jason Shellhammer, Carbon County GIS director, to inventory all utility lines and infrastructure throughout the borough.

“We did this in Lehighton and it worked out really well,” Shellhammer told Jim Thorpe officials earlier this year. “This will be really beneficial with the mandated lead line inventory.”

Information submitted by residents through the survey will be entered into a borough-wide mapping system, he added.

“Our charge is $38 per hour to compile everything and the software system is $1,561 per year,” Shellhammer said. “That is much cheaper than if you would go to an outside engineer to do this.”

Should lead lines need to be replaced, Sterner said their location dictates who is ultimately responsible for the cost.

“If they are on the property owner’s side, it is their responsibility and if they run from the stop to the main, they would be the borough’s responsibility,” she said. “We are aggressively looking at grant funding opportunities to offset costs to residents that may come about for replacement.”

Sterner said the sooner residents submit their survey information, the quicker the borough can pursue those grants.

The surveys, which take around 5-10 minutes, are due back to the borough as soon as possible. The borough is required to provide a spreadsheet to the EPA detailing all service line information by Oct. 16.