Sale of machine-intelligent pipe detection equipment added in response to U.S. government’s requirement to complete a nationwide water service line inventory
FORT WORTH, TX, UNITED STATES, March 3, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — Electro Scan Inc. today announced that Core & Main (NYSE: CNM), through its Damage Prevention business unit, Green Equipment Company based in Fort Worth, has sold its first SWORDFISH buried pipe material detection system to one of the ten largest cities in Texas.
The new tool will support ongoing federal and state compliance with the EPA’s Lead and Copper Rule Improvements (LCRI) regulation to validate pipe material classifications, without digging.
As of December 31, 2025, the EPA reported 66,409 U.S. water systems with 23.8 million “unknown” water service lines. Water utilities have until November 1, 2027 to identify all water service pipe materials or classify “unknown” lines for replacement over a ten-year period.
In November 2025, Electro Scan Inc. signed an exclusive sales & marketing agreement with Core & Main’s Damage Prevention team to sell its award-winning SWORDFISH lead detection solution to contractors, home inspectors, and water utilities.
After meeting with senior managers and conducting a “live” field demonstration, the City elected to modernize its field investigations using SWORDFISH. Prior to SWORDFISH, the City relied on visual inspection and excavation to determine a homeowner’s service line material(s).
The adoption of SWORDFISH supports compliance with requirements established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ).
Electro Scan’s patented SWORDFISH utilizes proprietary electrical resistance testing technology to classify buried pipe materials without destructive excavation.
SWORDFISH is the only commercially available tool that can accurately assess one or more buried pipe materials, without digging.
According to consolidated data published by the EPA, Texas utilities have reported more than 2.3 million service lines with unknown material classifications out of nearly 10 million total service connections.
Accurate identification and risk profiling of water service line materials remain central to public health protection and regulatory compliance.
Traditional approaches — including visual inspection, historical records review, and selective excavation (also called daylighting or potholing) — are often limited in scope and may not provide comprehensive verification of service line materials.
To address these limitations, Electro Scan Inc. developed its device and field testing protocols that pairs Electrical Resistance Testing (ERT) with post-survey Swab Testing (ST) of its probe to confirm lead-free homeowner drinking water pipes.
This combined approach aims to capture both the material identity and the presence of lead particulates on a pipe’s surface, providing an in depth risk profile for each homeowner’s service line.
SWORDFISH emits a low-voltage, high-frequency signal used to classify pipe materials based on their distinct electrical resistance characteristics.
Because different materials exhibit distinct electrical signatures — including lead, copper, galvanized steel, and plastic — utilities can rapidly classify service lines without excavation.
While federal law prohibited the installation of non-lead-free plumbing materials in 1986, Texas formally prohibited the use of lead service lines on July 1, 1988. Homes built prior to that date may still contain legacy lead components, underscoring the importance of accurate inventory verification.
Recently, peer-reviewed research has confirmed that lead particulates can accumulate on galvanized pipes downstream of current or former lead pipes and can also adhere to plastic and copper plumbing surfaces — creating a risk for newer homes built downstream from previously known lead water pipes.
These findings underscore the need to assess both material identity and surface deposition risk.
The City of Arlington, Texas was the first Texas municipality to adopt SWORDFISH technology as part of their water service line inventory efforts, and last month, Electro Scan announced its first Texas-based SWORDFISH services project at the Westwood Shores Municipal Utility District, Trinity, TX.
Electro Scan’s SWORDFISH has completed nearly 20,000 water service line home inspections since its introduction in 2022.
Beyond utility compliance, accurate service line identification is increasingly relevant to real estate transactions and property disclosures.
In 2025, over 4 million homes were sold in the United States without requiring the inspection of water service lines to determine if lead pipes were delivering drinking water to homeowners.
In January 2026, Electro Scan began working with a major international real estate brokerage firm to help home buyers certify their lines as lead-free or require sellers to install a water filtration system as part of real estate closings.
Cities and water utilities are now considering municipal ordinances to require water service line verifications as part of real estate transactions; similar to sewer line inspections.
According to the EPA, there are more than 100 million water service lines in the U.S. serving 335 million Americans nationwide.
On February 20, 2026, the Trump administration announced it backs a 10-year deadline to replace harmful lead pipes. Serving notice that the EPA will support a tough rule approved under the Biden administration to reduce lead in drinking water, the EPA also stated that local water utilities have ‘sufficient control’ over a property owner’s water service line to mandate full line replacement.
ABOUT ELECTRO SCAN INC.
Electro Scan Inc. develops and manufactures advanced inspection and diagnostic technologies for the water and wastewater industry. Its SWORDFISH platform accurately identifies service line materials, enabling utilities to build defensible inventories and replacement plans in compliance with federal & state regulations. Electro Scan’s technologies also support leak detection products and services, not generally found or measured by acoustic sensors or visual camera, including quality assurance/quality control (QA/QC) assessments for pipe repairs, rehabilitation, and relining projects, to determine watertight construction.
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#leadservice #leadpipe #lcrr #lcri #usepa #waterutilities #infrastructure #publichealth #electroscan #ai #machinelearning #trenchless #texaswater
Janine Mullinix
Electro Scan Inc.
+1 916-779-0660
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