Changes have been made regarding Two Rivers lead service line replacement.
The city council last night voted 8-1 to make voluntary lead service line replacement mandatory.
Water Service Director Andrew Sukowaty says the lead service line replacements is funded through programs including the Safe Drinking Water Loan Program and American Rescue Plan money.
The issue is the ARPA money must be used by 2025 because it’s required by the federal government.
City Engineer Matt Heckenlaible says there are still about 1,800 water service lines that need to be replaced.
There was an area the city wanted to look at, but they had shift gears because of funding constraints.
So now Heckenlaible says they must look in other areas of the city.
“We’re trying to better finalize the details before we got all the information out to these property owners,” Heckenlaible stated. “As such, we are then behind the eight-ball in getting the formal notification to these residents.”
Those notices should come out later this week.
Heckenlaible continues saying right now the city can use the ARPA funds to help pay for the cost of some of the lead service line replacement, but if the cost estimate is over $2,750, the homeowners will have to pay for most of it, whether it’s upfront or over a 5-year span.
Sukowaty says mandating the program is necessary.
“We’re trying to utilized the funding the best way we can to give everybody the maximum grant available to this,” he says. “So, if we go into those areas that we’ve picked out every year and you do have a lead service, it would be mandatory for you to replace it. It wouldn’t be mandatory to do the sewer, but it would be for the lead.”
Councilmember Adam Wachowski was against the program changes because of the financial challenges residents could face.
He told the council, “We live in a very poor community and people fall on hard times and I just don’t think that’s the right way to go about that.”
Wachowski was the only no vote from the council saying it feels like something similar the street program did in the past where they wouldn’t give advance notice before a street is repaired.
Heckenlaible says the Public Works Department will work to replace about 150 lines this year and next.
During yesterday’s meeting, he didn’t talk about what specific area would have the lines replaced.
