There has been a lot of news about drinking water in the past few years.  With the drinking quality issues in various parts of the country, water transport and aging pipe systems have been in the spotlight.  In part, these issues stem from the deterioration of the pipelines, as well as possible the water chemistry, that helps drive leachable ions out into the water and through your faucet.  Our lab supports understanding of waters ability to cause this damage, sometimes resulting in corrosion, through basic analysis.  In addition, metallurgical analysis is a powerful tool in understanding the condition of aging waterlines.  Analysis of samples that are removed from service for general maintenance can be used to give an indication of the overall system health, with no intrusive work to be done.  Analyzing these types of samples given an idea of the soil side and waterside deterioration that has occurred over time, as well as assessing the integrity of any coatings.