Department of War installations and water utilities are required to identify and categorize all of their pipes as lead, non-lead, galvanized-requiring-replacement, or unknown, and to replace their entire inventory of lead service lines within 10 years. This is a looming issue for installations and utilities alike given the large number of pipes with unknown material composition across the country. Currently, the only way to reliably determine the material of an unknown pipe is through excavation which is both expensive and disruptive. Supplemental techniques such as records screening and water sampling can help narrow down which pipes to excavate, but they are not enough to eliminate false positives and negatives generated during excavation.

There are a number of emerging technologies whose capabilities show promise but have not yet been rigorously evaluated. This effort seeks to evaluate and validate those technologies to demonstrate their effectiveness and cost-efficiency, increasing the arsenal of tools that installations have in detecting underground utilities.

This project will evaluate a few emerging technologies and their ability to cost-effectively replace excavation as the primary way of determining pipe material. Each technology will be evaluated based on its performance in a number of categories, including detection accuracy, costs, user friendliness, consistency of results, and other detection characteristics such as maximum detection depth and speed. Technologies will be tested in a controlled environment ("pipe farm") and in real world settings on installations. Successful demonstration of a technology will conclude whether the technology is suitable to replace excavation, if further innovation is required first, or if the technology is not suitable.

Excavation remains the only way to reliably determine the material of an unknown pipe, but widespread excavation is cost-prohibitive and disruptive. This disruption can be avoided if one or more technologies are proven to be cost-effective and have detection accuracy rates equal to those of excavation. Many emerging technologies could potentially meet these requirements, but rigorous testing of their capabilities is required before recommendations can be made. Insights generated from this project will contribute to more cost efficient and effective processes to modernize installations. (Anticipated Project Completion - 2028)