Port Orchard’s Public Works Department has some comforting news for city residents: We’re not Flint, Michigan.

That’s good news on a number of fronts, most notably for the city’s municipal water supply and the people who use it.

A Drinking Water Quality Update for 2016 sent to Mayor Rob Putaansuu earlier this week concluded that Port Orchard’s water has only minuscule amounts of lead.

Water samples taken last year from 30 city homes, plus an additional 10 in McCormick Woods, showed a lead concentration of .001 milligrams per liter.

That’s a slight decline from sampling done twice before from the city water supply beginning in 1997. At that time, the lead contaminant level registered at .002 milligrams per liter, well below the maximum allowed level of .015 milligrams.

In comparison, scandal-plagued Flint’s water supply has reached lead levels of around 4.0 milligrams per liter.

Thomas Hunter, the city’s water systems manager and public works foreman, reported that Port Orchard water supply samples have been pulled every three years from the same sampling ratio of 30 city homes and 10 in McCormick Woods.

According to Hunter’s report to the mayor, lead in drinking water “primarily originates from a leaching process that can occur within household plumbing in older homes, and as recently discovered in lead goosenecks.”

He said water is tested inside the home after it has traveled through interior plumbing.

Public works records as far back as the 1940s indicate that only copper was used here for water service lines. Hunter said that has been verified by city work crews that have excavated older service lines and found no evidence of lead goosenecks.

A few reasons exist for low lead levels in the city’s water system: In contrast to homes on the East Coast, which are typically much older, home plumbing here is newer and uses copper, not lead pipes.

Also, Hunter’s report noted that the city draws its water supply from groundwater sources, which produces water that is “much less corrosive than other areas.” Because of that, he wrote, this reduced corrosive chemical composition results in less lead leached out of plumbing.