Some Kentucky property owners are being asked to check out the water lines at their homes.

Notices are arriving in the mail from utility companies letting property owners know about a national plan to get rid of water lines made of lead, which is a harmful neurotoxin, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

More than 20,000 service lines in Kentucky contain lead, and more than 40,000 are projected to have lead.

Another 65,000 service lines are made of unknown material, and more than 500,000 have not been reported by utility companies.

We spoke to the Kentucky Rural Water Association about the national plan to get the lead out of water lines and what to do if you get a notice in the mail.

Overall, Kentucky has very few lead service lines compared to a lot of other states out there.

Kentucky utilities have been very proactive in the past decade trying to remove and go ahead and replace these service lines long before it became a federal mandate to do so.

Older communities along along our rivers that were founded first in the state have a higher likelihood of having pockets of lead service lines.

But really in Kentucky, we're doing pretty good on that replacement at this point in time.

We've just got some isolated pockets left.

Folks that might be receiving a letter right now could be receiving one because the utility thinks they have a lead service line or if you've got a galvanized steel line to your home that may have been in contact with lead in the past, your utility is going to notify you of the same lead, potential risks.

And then the other letter is for people whose service line material is unknown.

And honestly, that's the major party of the letters going out right now.

And it's because your utility just doesn't know what your service line material is made out of.

And in that case, most of those letters are also asking for help from the customer.

If you're a homeowner and you don't know what your service line material is made out of.

We've got a couple of different resources that can help you.

One, you can always call your water provider and tell them you're not comfortable making that determination.

You don't know what your service line material is and you would like for them to come out and take a look.

Your utility provider will come out and do that for you.

It actually helps them.

They can then mark it off on their inventory and they know what your line material is at that point.

If you would like to make an attempt to identify your own service line material, there are resources you want to Google, check your pipes.

Kentucky, that is a website that has been designed by the Energy and Environment Cabinet here in Kentucky.

The Division of Water has set this up and there's a whole section on their information for consumers.

There's a video on how to make your service line determination videos on things you can do to protect yourself.

If you want to know who's going to replace your service line, if you have a letter or galvanized line, you need to talk to your utility, because the answer to that question is going to vary across different locations.

If your utility is a recipient of bipartisan infrastructure law moneys through CALEA, they are required to use that money to pay for an individual homeowner service line replacement, not just the public side, but also the private side, because one whole service line has dual ownership.

If your utility does not qualify for funding under this rule, there is no requirement that the utility has to pay for it.

Some utilities are just picking up the tab just to get it done.

Some utilities are saying we'll pay for it up front and then we're going to ask you to pay back a part of it slowly monthly on your water bill.

I think it's important to note that in the state of Kentucky, we have never had a documented, documented case of lead contamination in drinking water.

That's led to anybody having elevated levels of blood lead poisoning.

But just because we haven't seen it doesn't mean that we don't understand the risk is there, which is why we're trying to get this information out to the public.

And there are steps you can take to help protect yourself from potential lead contamination in drinking water.

The Kentucky Rural Water Association says there are steps you can take to protect yourself, even if you have a service line made of lead or galvanized material or if a water line has not been used for an extended period of time, run the tap and let it flush for 30 seconds to 2 minutes before drinking or using it to cook.

It's also recommended you cook with cold water, not hot water from the tap.

That's because there's a higher risk.

The water will contain metals that dissolve from inside the water heater.