Pittsburgh Unveils Million-Dollar Stopgap To Lead In Drinking Water
By Peak Johnson
Bill Peduto, the mayor of Pittsburgh, offered a solution to the city’s lead-contaminated drinking water problem. Earlier this month, he announced a $1 million plan to supply all homes, schools, and public buildings with filters.
“People's Gas is kicking in $500,000 and the city and the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority (PWSA) are supplying $250,000 apiece to pay for the filters, which will be distributed in coming weeks,” Triblive reported.
The mayor added that distribution details have not been worked out yet.
“Forty-eight hours ago, the president of People's Gas, Morgan O'Brien, made a phone call to our chief of staff, Kevin Acklin, saying we want to be able to help to get people water filters,” Peduto said, per Triblive. “We were able to round up a quarter-million (dollars) out of the city's budget and a quarter-million out of PWSA's budget. This will supply all water customers in the city with filters.”
People's Gas spokesperson Barry Kukovich said that “the company contributed because the cause fits its criteria for making charitable donations to economic development and human health initiatives,” according to Triblive.
“All of these people are our customers,” Kukovich said. “Nobody wants a Flint, Mich., here.”
There are at least 20,000 homes that have lead water lines which need replacement, according to city officials.
“This is a Band-aid on a solution that's going to be over a decade in solving,” Peduto said. “Hundreds of millions of dollars will be needed to solve it over the next decade or more, but in the meantime we want to be sure that children and parents and grandparents all have safe drinking water.”
Pittsburgh has been struggling with lead in its drinking water for some time now. According to authority data the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review obtained through a Right-to-Know Law request in February, “Of the 3,057 water samples PWSA customers sent to be tested for lead last year, more than half — 1,612 — took longer than a month to get results.”
When those results were received,11 percent of the samples, or 333 total, were found to have lead levels above 15 ppb, a level that requires additional action per the U.S. EPA.
According to Pittsburgh CBS, “Pittsburgh Public Schools tested its water at all 70 facilities this past summer and then removed or replaced 14 fountains that tested above the federal limit.”