Chicago Resists Unearthing Lead Water Pipes

Across the country, more and more cities are working towards replacing their aged pipes.

The Chicago Tribune reported that cities such as Philadelphia, Boston, Pittsburgh, and others are all making great strides in replacing their aged and harmful pipes, which might leach lead into drinking water.

According to The Chicago Tribune, Chicago has more lead pipes than other cities and required them by law until 1986, “when Congress banned the use of the brain-damaging metal to convey drinking water.”

As Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel continues with plans to address his city’s water system, administration officials have said that it is the responsibility of the “individual homeowners to decide whether it is worth replacing the pipes at their own expense.”

Of the $412 million Emanuel has borrowed from a federal-state loan fund during the past six years for water-related projects, none of that money has gone to replace lead pipes, according to The Chicago Tribune.

More than two-thirds of the money had been earmarked to replace 440 miles of aging water mains, “work that helps prevent leaks but can inadvertently increase the chances Chicagoans are exposed to lead in their drinking water,” according to The Chicago Tribune.

The Emanuel administration increased the amount borrowed and the number of mains that were replaced each year. They continued even after a 2013 study of Chicago homes by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency “found that when service lines are disturbed by street work, high levels of lead can flow out of household taps for weeks or months afterward.”

Each time city crews and contractors dig up a Chicago street to replace a water main, they connect new cast iron pipes to existing lead service lines between the roadway and individual houses, The Chicago Tribune reported.
The Department of Water Management wrote in an email to The Chicago Tribune that the reason Chicago does not replace lead service lines at the same time is because city officials have stated that there is no proof Chicagoans are at risk.

"There is no scientific data surrounding the impact of construction on water quality," Gary Litherland, a water department spokesman, wrote to The Chicago Tribune.

In early June, The Guardian reported that many people in Chicago were demanding that their water be tested or that lead lines be removed after, according to the EPA, “people in Chicago should run their faucets for three minutes to help clear most of the lead out.”

According to The Chicago Tribune, one reason Chicago and most other cities have not been required to replace service lines is that there is “no federal limit on the amount of lead in tap water at individual homes.”

EPA has announced that it will propose a "household action level" by the end of the year. At the moment, “a water utility can be ordered to make repairs only if it repeatedly exceeds a system wide benchmark intended to gauge the effectiveness of anti-corrosion treatment.”

The Chicago Tribune reported that city officials have said that corrosion control in the city is effective, “basing their assurances of safety on 50 federally mandated lead tests conducted every three years.”