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Reading passage Grade 8 English Language Arts

Stonebrook Heights Replaces Its Lead Water Pipes: A Grade 8 Passage

A grade 8 informational passage on a fictional town's lead pipe replacement project, grounded in real federal lead rules and a national replacement timeline.

Objectives

  1. Students will identify the process by which a town decides which lead service lines to replace first.
  2. Students will cite specific textual evidence to support an analysis of why a federal deadline is pushing replacement work faster.
  3. Students will explain how a described cause (lead dissolving into water) connects to a described effect (a health risk requiring regulation).

Vocabulary

Service line
A service line is the small pipe that connects the water main under the street to the plumbing inside one home or building. It is the last leg of the trip water makes to your tap.
Action level
A trigger number in lead and copper testing. If too many homes test above this level, the utility must take steps like improving treatment and telling the public.

Also: corrosion, inventory

Teacher overview

Stonebrook Heights (a fictional town used for this passage) is replacing the lead pipes that connect many of its older homes to the water main, a project playing out in real communities across the United States right now. This passage explains what a lead service line is, why federal rules are pushing utilities to replace them faster, and how one town is deciding which locations to prioritize first. It gives students a concrete, current example of how environmental regulation translates into a construction project a family might actually see happening outside their window.

Stonebrook Heights Replaces Its Lead Water Pipes: A Grade 8 Passage — Grade 8 English Language Arts
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Passage

Every home connected to a public water system gets its water through a service line. A service line is the pipe running from the water main under the street to the house itself. In many older American towns, including Stonebrook Heights, some of these service lines are made of lead. Lead was common in plumbing for much of the twentieth century. It resists corrosion, and it is easy to bend around obstacles underground. The problem is that lead can dissolve into the water passing through it. This happens especially when the water is more acidic, or when the pipe's protective mineral coating breaks down. Lead exposure carries serious health risks, particularly for children's developing brains and nervous systems.

Nationally, the Environmental Protection Agency estimated in November 2025 that about 4 million lead service lines remain in water systems across the United States, based on the service line inventories utilities reported that year. They are not evenly distributed. Older neighborhoods, often in lower-income communities, are more likely to still have lead pipes. Many of those pipes were installed decades ago and have simply never been replaced. Stonebrook Heights is typical in that respect. Most of its lead service lines run beneath streets built before 1950, in the older, denser part of town near the original downtown core.

Federal regulation is now pushing utilities to move faster. The Environmental Protection Agency finalized the Lead and Copper Rule Improvements in October 2024. Under that rule, the lead action level is set to drop from 15 parts per billion to 10 parts per billion in 2027. The action level is the concentration that triggers required action by a utility. The same rule requires utilities to replace nearly all remaining lead service lines within ten years. For a town like Stonebrook Heights, that means a construction timeline that used to stretch across decades now has to compress into one.

Deciding where to dig first is its own challenge. Stonebrook Heights' water utility built a service line inventory. This is a street-by-street map. It shows which homes still have lead pipes, which have already been replaced, and which remain unknown because old records were incomplete. The utility is prioritizing schools, daycare centers, and streets with the oldest housing stock first. The reasoning is simple: the health stakes are highest wherever young children spend the most time. Streets where the inventory is still uncertain get a different kind of priority. Crews test the soil and the existing pipe material directly before deciding whether replacement is even necessary. Digging up a copper or plastic line that never needed replacing would waste both money and time.

The work itself is disruptive. Crews cut a narrow trench from the street to each home's water meter. They remove the old lead section and install new copper or plastic pipe in its place. Most homes get a finished connection within a single day. Homeowners on an affected street typically get a written notice in advance. They also get instructions to run their cold water tap for a few minutes after the work is done, since replacement itself can temporarily stir up lead particles that had settled inside the old pipe.

Stonebrook Heights expects the project to take several years, street by street. The town is paying for it partly through its own water rates and partly through state and federal infrastructure grants tied to the same federal rule. For residents on streets already completed, the change is largely invisible. The water looks and tastes the same as it did before. The difference is that lead from an old pipe is no longer dissolving into it.

Questions

  1. What is a service line, according to the passage?
  2. Why was lead commonly used in service lines during much of the twentieth century?
  3. Cite the sentence in the passage that explains why lead is more likely to dissolve into water under certain conditions.
  4. According to the passage, what is a service line inventory, and why did Stonebrook Heights create one?
  5. What will change about the federal lead action level in 2027, and what must utilities do within ten years under the same rule?
  6. Cite the specific reason the passage gives for why Stonebrook Heights prioritizes schools, daycare centers, and streets with the oldest housing first.
  7. Why might a utility choose to test a street's pipe material before digging, rather than digging first and checking afterward?
  8. Based on the passage, why might a resident on a street that was replaced last year notice no visible difference in their water, even though something important changed?

From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.

Answer Key
  1. Answer: A service line is the pipe that runs from the water main under the street to an individual home, as the passage describes in its first paragraph.
  2. Answer: Lead resisted corrosion and was easy to bend around underground obstacles, which made it a common, practical choice for plumbers for much of the twentieth century, according to the passage.
  3. Answer: "This happens especially when the water is more acidic, or when the pipe's protective mineral coating breaks down." Paraphrases that keep the acidity or coating-breakdown detail are acceptable.
  4. Answer: A service line inventory is a street-by-street map identifying which homes still have lead pipes, which have been replaced, and which are unknown. Stonebrook Heights created one to figure out where replacement work is actually needed before digging.
  5. Answer: The lead action level will drop from 15 to 10 parts per billion in 2027, and utilities must replace nearly all remaining lead service lines within ten years under the same federal rule.
  6. Answer: The passage states that the utility prioritizes those locations because "the health stakes are highest wherever young children spend the most time," since lead exposure is especially harmful to children's developing brains and nervous systems.
  7. Answer: Answers will vary but should note that testing first avoids wasting money and time digging up a copper or plastic pipe that never needed replacing, information the passage states directly.
  8. Answer: Answers will vary but should explain that the water's taste and appearance do not reveal whether lead was dissolving into it, since the passage states the water "looks and tastes the same as it did before," meaning the change, no longer having a lead pipe, is invisible even though it matters for health.

Differentiation

Support (below grade level)

Provide a simple diagram showing a water main, a service line, and a house, with the lead versus replaced sections labeled in two colors, and allow question 5 to be answered by filling in a partially completed sentence: "The lead action level will drop from ___ to ___ parts per billion in ___."

Extension (above grade level)

Ask students to research (using only the passage and teacher-provided facts, not outside sources) what a family could do while waiting for their street's turn in a service line replacement program, and to write a short paragraph explaining that guidance using evidence from the passage about how lead dissolves into water.

ELL supports

Pre-teach "service line," "corrosion," "inventory," and "action level" with simple definitions and a labeled diagram before reading. Allow students to answer questions 1, 2, and 5 with short phrases rather than full sentences.