Summerville Commissioners of Public Works: How Proactive Planning Got Every School Tested Ahead of the LCRI Deadline

For Summerville Commissioners of Public Works (SCPW), a utility serving more than 20,500 customers in and around the Town of Summerville, South Carolina, getting ahead of school lead sampling wasn't about waiting for a deadline to force the issue. Under General Manager Chris Kahler's proactive leadership, the utility moved early — and all 13 of their schools, including both high schools, are already tested and in compliance.

Challenge

The Lead and Copper Rule Improvements (LCRI) gradually phase in school and daycare sampling: community water systems have until roughly five years after their 2027 compliance date to work through just their elementary schools, sampling a minimum of 20% each year. Secondary schools aren't part of that mandatory rollout at all — they're sampled only if the school requests it. SCPW didn't take the gradual path.

SCPW had already worked with 120Water since 2021 on its lead service line inventory, reviewing historical work orders and confirming construction materials across its distribution system. That work built confidence in the utility's data, but school and daycare facility sampling was a different challenge entirely: dozens of individual sites, no existing point of contact, and a compressed timeline before the rest of the state started competing for the same resources.

Deputy General Manager of Operations Alicia Wilson knew from experience how hard it is to get accurate samples back from individual site contacts. SCPW's own residential lead and copper sampling required constant follow-up to get homeowners to complete and return kits correctly. Multiply that by 13 schools and dozens of daycares, and the utility needed a way to manage the work without pulling staff off everything else.

Solution

SCPW went beyond what was required, voluntarily including both of its high schools in the sampling program even though secondary schools are only sampled on request under LCRI.

"Our GM's direction was simple: get it done as soon as possible. We decided to voluntarily test both high schools too — there were only two, so there was no reason to wait and see if they'd be required." — Alicia Wilson, Deputy General Manager of Operations, Summerville CPW

That same instinct shaped SCPW's timing with 120Water. Anticipating a statewide rush as the compliance date approached, SCPW secured its spot early with both 120Water and its modeling partner, BlueConduit.

For Alicia, the defining feature of the partnership was how little it demanded of her team. For the 10 schools in the local public school district, SCPW consolidated coordination for with the school district into a single point of contact, and 120Water handled the rest: kit fulfillment and lab coordination, all program communications and education — letters, postcards, phone calls, and emails — ongoing kit distribution, sample QA/QC, result notice distribution, and regular progress reports and check-ins with the SCPW team. The remaining three schools were independent and coordinated separately. 

Local relationships helped clear the last hurdle: when the school district's public information office raised initial concerns, Kahler’s community relationships helped open the discussion about what the sampling program involved and why it mattered.

Results

SCPW completed its school sampling program well ahead of the regulation's phased schedule, with minimal disruption to day-to-day operations. The early decision at the leadership level meant staff spent little time chasing down individual sample kits — most of the coordination ran through 120Water and the school district point of contact for 10 of the schools.

• 13 of 13 schools in Summerville CPW's service area have completed lead sampling, including both high schools, which the utility tested voluntarily
• Every school tested in compliance with LCRI requirements
• SCPW completed 100% of its schools well ahead of the regulation's phased five-year schedule — and tested high schools that weren't required to be sampled at all
• A single school district point of contact streamlined coordination for 10 of the 13 schools, reducing site-by-site outreach for the majority of the program

Alicia sums up what stood out most:

"I've really enjoyed working with the 120Water team. For the last several years, doing the school sampling work, I've had the same points of contact — that consistency has made a real difference."

SCPW's daycare sampling program is still underway, with the utility planning renewed outreach ahead of its compliance window. It's the next chapter in a partnership that's already shown, with the schools, what's possible when a utility decides not to wait.