The members of the Baltimore City Council are offering their assistance in reaching out to residents for the city’s lead pipe testing program after initial efforts were slow to gather responses.

Like other cities across the country, Baltimore has been working to meet a new regulation from the federal Environmental Protection Agency that requires the city to replace all service lines made out of the hazardous material within 10 years. Before the lines can be replaced, the city must locate where they are.

To do that, Baltimore officials have asked homeowners, businesses and other water customers to pitch in by testing their own pipes and completing an online survey.

An inventory of those results, which also must include customers of the city’s water system in Baltimore County, is due by October.

The response thus far has been tepid. As of this week, just 4,389 surveys had been completed in Baltimore — a 2.4% participation rate, Department of Public Works officials reported during a hearing Wednesday of the council’s Public Safety and Government Operations Committee. The pipe material remains unknown at another 177,670 city properties.

To get the word out about the surveys, DPW has cohosted a virtual town hall, attended more than 150 community meetings, distributed door hangers and tucked brochures into city water bills. But it has been the urging of city public officials, specifically Mayor Brandon Scott and Baltimore County Executive Johnny Olszewski Jr., that has prompted the biggest boost so far in participation, Paul Sayan, acting head of DPW’s Bureau of Water and Wastewater, told the council.

Sayan proposed a day of action by the City Council members to try to inspire similar support. Council members at the hearing were eager to beat the mayor.

Councilman Mark Conway, who represents a swath of North Baltimore, asked DPW officials to use his platform. Conway said he would be willing to be filmed testing the pipes in his house.

“Use us so that we can beat the mayor’s bump,” he said. “We’ve all run campaigns here, and I can tell you the door that is opened is way more valuable than the lit (literature) that is dropped.”

Councilwoman Odette Ramos echoed Conway’s eagerness and floated the idea of a contest between council districts. She noted that her district, in north central Baltimore, has the highest participation so far at 10.5%. (West Baltimore’s District 9 has the lowest participation rate so far at 0.9%.)

In addition to encouraging participation, the city needs to do a better job of informing residents about what to do if they find lead in their pipes, Ramos said.

Sayan said that has not been an issue so far with the program, but added that the city treats its water so that reaction with pipes, lead or otherwise, is minimal. Residents also can request a water test via the 311 system, officials noted.

“I just want to make sure that messaging is a part of it,” Ramos said.