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See the original article from WREX 13.
ROCKFORD (WREX) — The city of Rockford says there are 14,000 lead water pipes that it knows of in the city. While the city takes steps to replace them, it’s the pipes on private property water officials are hoping home owners will pay attention to. “A lot of times any home that was built before 1987 could have lead whether it could be on the public side or the private side,” says City of Rockford Public Works Director Kyle Saunders. Which is where a new $2 million grant comes in. Fehr Graham is working on behalf of the city to replace roughly 2,500 lead pipes over the next five years. Those lines are private lines, or the one that are on private property. The city says it will focus on the highest risk, first. See the original article from the Daily Reporter.
Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett plans to increase spending on infrastructure and lead-line replacements next year, according to the 2020 budget proposal he released on Tuesday. In his budget address, Barrett said the city was at a “crossroads” and called on state lawmakers to allow county residents to vote in a referendum on a proposed 1% sales. If approved, the sales tax would provide money that would go not only to the city of Milwaukee but also other local municipalities and Milwaukee County itself. Barrett is calling for spending $70.6 million next year on infrastructure, an amount that would be an increase of $4.7 million over what’s set aside for that purpose in the city’s current budget. Among other things, the plans call for the reconstruction of 26 miles of city streets, replacement of 20 miles of water mains and expenditure of $10 million to rebuild a pumping station for use with a pipeline to bring water from Lake Michigan to the city of Waukesha. The proposed budget would also spend a similar amount to replace lead service lines. The Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority hit its state-enforced requirement for lead line replacement 10 months ahead of schedule this year, the agency said Wednesday.
The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection required that 7% — or 855 — lead service lines in Pittsburgh be replaced between this past July and the end of June 2020. “We’re happy that we met this requirement, and we are keeping our foot on the gas pedal to do everything we can to remove all lead risk from our customers,” said Will Pickering, PWSA spokesman. The DEP required the lead line replacements because water testing results in the city showed lead levels that exceeded the federal threshold of 15 parts per billion. The Daily Star
Read the original article. The city of Norwich was one of two in the Southern Tier awarded state funds to replace lead water pipes. Norwich and Hornell each received a $528,750 grant to find and replace residential water service lines that contain lead, according to a media release. “This is a terrific opportunity for homeowners to update lead piping going into their homes, ensuring water quality as well as being beneficial to the community at large,” said Norwich Mayor Christine Carnrike. “We consider this an important quality-of-life issue that New York state is making inroads in addressing.” The grant funds, announced at the end of July, are the second round in an initiative of the state Department of Health to invest in drinking water and wastewater infrastructure. $10 million was earmarked in the 2019 fiscal year budget to continue the state’s Clean Water Infrastructure Act of 2017, according to the release. Edward Pepe, the city’s public works superintendent, said the extent of the problem is uncertain. See the original article from Toledo Blade.
Toledo City Councilmen and community activists are adamant the city’s 30,000 lead water service lines be replaced once a new regional water system is established, and work to modernize those pipes is about to ramp up. Beginning in 2020, city crews will systematically go through Toledo’s neighborhoods to replace lead pipes with copper ones. It’s a deliberate, methodical effort to switch out the old pipes, but crews have been slowly modernizing the water service lines for the last two decades. Christy Soncrant, an administrator with the city’s engineering services division, said officials in 1999 kicked off an effort to replace aging water mains in the city. The water service lines are the pipes that shoot off from the water main and carry drinking water to homes and businesses, and crews decided to replace those service lines when they were doing the water main work. Twenty years later, crews began replacing any lead service lines uncovered during street repair projects. Environmental Defense Fund
See the original blog. In January, we reported on the tremendous progress made by states and communities in 2018 to replace lead service lines (LSLs) – the estimated 6.1 million lead pipes across the country that connect homes and other buildings to the water main under the street. At that time, our tracker stood at 95 communities and 16 states working to replace LSLs. Half a year later, and the total number of communities (including municipalities and water utilities) EDF has learned of that are leading the way has swelled to 181.
WREX.com
See the original article. ROCKFORD (WREX) — A federal grant is allowing the City of Rockford to replace lead water pipes. The city secured a $2 million Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (IEPA) State Revolving Loan that doesn’t need to be paid back. Over the next five years, Rockford Water plans to replace about 2,500 of its 14,000 known lead service lines, focusing on the highest risk pipes first. The $2 million is expected to cover work that started in July and will go through spring. The city plans to apply for another loan to continue the program once the $2 million is used. It will take several years to replace all the lead lines. The city says they’re taking a three-prong approach to the project:
Daily Gazette
See the original article. The money is part of $10 million awarded to 18 municipalities in New York state in July. The state also spent $10 million on the lead service line replacement program last year, all of the funding coming from the $2.5 billion Clean Water Infrastructure Act of 2017. Unlike many lead pipe removal programs, this one pays the entire cost of replacing a lead service line feeding water into a private residence, without cost to the homeowner. The rules of the Lead Service Line Replacement program allow each municipality to decide which homeowners can tap into the funds. The money can be used to either reimburse private contractors hired by homeowners, with contracts approved by the state, or to reimburse the municipality for costs incurred to its Department of Public Works. Eligible expenses include engineering plans for removal of the pipes, as well as construction costs. The state estimates the cost to replace most residential lines will be $5,000 to $10,000 per lead service line. Each municipality will be responsible for contacting homeowners to confirm the presence of a lead service line, full or partial, and whether or not the homeowner is interested in having it replaced. |
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