Health
Chicago Water Department Takes Heat for Sitting on Millions Earmarked for Lead Line Replacement
(Sonmez / iStock)
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The Chicago Department of Water Management is sitting on hundreds of millions of dollars earmarked for lead line replacement, with little progress made in terms of swapping out the toxic pipes. Chicago City Council members want to know why.
“There hasn’t been a sense of urgency,” said Ald. Gilbert Villegas (36th Ward). “Children’s brains are at risk.”
Villegas called for a subject matter hearing into the city’s lead line replacement program, which was held Monday at a meeting of the City Council’s Committee on Environmental Protection and Energy.
Among the questions leveled at officials from the Water Department and Department of Finance: Why does lead service line replacement in Chicago cost four to five times as much as in other cities? Why have fewer than 10% of residents with lead lines been sent mandated notices? And how is money appropriated for lead line replacement being spent?
Replacing Chicago’s more than 400,000 lead service lines is expected to cost $14 billion, and the city has tapped a number of funding sources, including loans from the federal government, as well as revenue and general obligation bonds.
Of the $325 million available through a loan from the federal government, only $70 million to $90 million has been spent since the financing was finalized in 2023, according to Brendan White, Department of Finance debt manager. The loan expires at the end of 2026, he added.
“We’re ramping up the program and expecting to spend a lot more next year than this year,” White said.
An additional $60 million in bond debt was authorized by City Council in 2023. Of that, $41.5 million was actually borrowed and spent, White said. Another $72 million was authorized in May of this year, with approximately $5.4 million spent.
“Why are you borrowing if you’re not spending?” asked Ald. Ray Lopez (15th Ward).
That second round of debt was authorized in anticipation of the Water Department ramping up the pace of the replacement program, said White, prompting Lopez to request a copy of the proposed work schedule.
“I’d like to know why we are paying interest on work that we’re not doing,” Lopez said. “Were you given a list of what you are paying for that equals $72 million?”
The Water Department has said it’s on pace to replace 8,000 lead service lines in 2025.
Despite the availability of at least $300 million in unspent loan dollars, the water department has failed to send out notifications — as required by both state and federal law — to the vast majority of Chicagoans who are served by lead lines.
Those notices — informing approximately 900,000 homeowners, landlords and tenants that their drinking water could be unsafe — were due to be sent by last November but as of early July, the city had only notified 7% of its list, according to an investigation by WBEZ, Inside Climate News and Grist.
The process of sending that many physical letters through the mail would have cost an estimated $10 million, a poor use of funds that could be put toward actual lead service line replacement, Patrick Schwer, Chicago’s director of water quality, told the committee.
The department has prioritized sending notices to single-family homes, which have the highest level of risk of lead exposure, he said, with 75,000 letters sent to those individuals.
By the end of the year, another 250,000 to 320,000 people should have received information about their lead service line via billing inserts, Schwer said. He also pointed to a searchable database, up and running since 2023, that people can use to check the status of their lead service line.
Typically, Schwer noted, 10% of people receiving notices follow up with a request for a testing kit. If the department had sent out 900,000 letters at once as required, the flood of testing requests would have been overwhelming, he added.
“We’ve determined 3,000 letters a month is what the city can handle,” Schwer told the committee.
The hearing concluded with more questions raised than answered, but Villegas had succeeded in his goal of holding officials accountable.
“It’s a ticking time bomb,” he said.
Contact Patty Wetli: [email protected]
