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WATERTOWN, N.Y. (WWNY) - The city of Watertown is replacing water service lines made with lead. A couple of years ago, the city received money from the state to do it, but it still has a lot of money left. The city Water Department crew is digging down to the water line going to a home on East Avenue. It is replacing a lead piece of piping called a goose neck. "As the water goes over that lead piece of pipe, it collects some of that lead and then people are drinking it, so obviously we want to remove that," said Vicky Murphy, the city's water superintendent. See the original article from NBC 12.
RICHMOND, Va. (WWBT) - In recognition of National Lead Poisoning Prevention Week (October 20 – 26, 2019), the City of Richmond Department of Public Utilities (DPU) announces its Lead Service Line Replacement (LSLR) Grant Program. This week raises awareness of lead poisoning and focuses on ways to reduce childhood exposure to lead, as lead can be especially harmful to children. The Department of Public Utilities says water supplied by the city is safe and has won awards for its quality. The city also treats water with an inhibitor to help mitigate the possibility of lead being deposited in the pipes. But lead can get into tap water through home service piping, lead solder used in plumbing and some brass fixtures. Homes built prior to the mid-1980s may contain lead piping or other lead components that may result in small amounts of lead being deposited in the water that goes to homes. The LSLR Grant Program helps homeowners get lead out of their homes by replacing lead water service lines. Financial assistance up to $2,500 can be awarded for direct costs for lead service line replacement. The grant program was introduced by DPU in 2018 and is now in its second phase. Richmond is one of three localities in the commonwealth to receive grant funding from the Virginia Department of Health’s Office of Drinking Water. “We recognize our responsibility and role in ensuring the public health of our community is always foremost. I’m especially proud of the work my team does in providing clean and safe drinking water and in administering this grant program. Collaborative partnerships, like this with the Virginia Department of Health, are essential with limited public funding and investment,” says Calvin D. Farr, Jr., DPU director. DPU publishes a Consumer Confidence Report each year that highlights the quality of its drinking water. These reports are published on the website at www.richmondgov.com. Hard copies are available upon request. Additionally, water utility customers can request testing of their drinking water at any time. For more information on the Lead Service Line Replacement Grant Program, contact: Michelle Woodson, (804) 646-8544 See the original article from WaterWorld.
BUFFALO, NY, OCT 21, 2019 -- Mayor Byron W. Brown and Buffalo Water Board Chairman Oluwole “OJ” McFoy recently announced that Buffalo “Replace Old Lead Lines” (ROLL) program has replaced over 100 water lines since its launch in late June. This pilot program, funded through $567,000 from Governor Andrew M. Cuomo’s water line replacement initiative, as well as a $155,000 member item grant from Senator Jacobs, and a $100,000 Department of Environmental Conservation grant, has enabled the City to replace residents’ water service lines when those lines experience a break or a leak. “With the announcement of this program earlier this year, it was my goal to further the city’s commitment to combatting lead exposure, while also making our communities healthier and stronger,” Mayor Brown said. “Replacement of lead service lines will not only ensure the continued safety of our drinking water, but it will also enhance residential infrastructure making it more resilient for the future.” See the original article in NJ Spotlight.
On Thursday, Gov. Phil Murphy unveiled a sweeping agenda designed to eliminate New Jersey’s lead contamination problem in 10 years. The plan includes replacing every lead service line that’s leaching the potent toxin into drinking water and requiring every child to be tested for lead before starting school. “It is time for us to ensure that New Jerseyans are safe from lead exposure, and that generations to come remain safe,” said Murphy. “The damage that is done to kids who have exposure — and it’s not treated, it’s not known — is so overwhelmingly obvious.” Getting the lead out will be a massive task. Information from New Jersey water utilities estimates 350,000 lead service lines need to be replaced statewide, and that the cost to replace them all could top $2 billion. Murphy would remediate the lead problem by asking voters to approve a $500 million bond issue in November 2020 to help public water utilities with paying for lead service line replacement. His goal: to replace all lead service lines within a decade. See the original article from NJ.com
By Michael Sol Warren | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com and Brent Johnson | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com There’s a new plan for eliminating lead contamination in New Jersey’s water. It just needs 10 years and billions of dollars. A package of recommendations released on Thursday by Jersey Water Works, a nonpartisan infrastructure advocacy group, calls for sweeping policy changes to address the lead threat in the Garden State. Gov. Phil Murphy joined the task force at a news conference in Trenton where the plan was unveiled, and embraced the proposals put forward by the task force. In his speech, Murphy announced that he will push for a $500 million statewide bond initiative to address lead contamination. 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. |
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