PWSA secures millions in state money

$49M targeted to replace lead pipes

Buoyed by millions in state money, the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority is set to accelerate replacements for underground lead pipes next year.

About $49 million approved Wednesday by the Pennsylvania Infrastructure Investment Authority, or Pennvest, should pay for replacing about 2,800 residential lead service connections in 2019, city and state officials said.

That’s up from the roughly 2,100 residential connections that workers are replacing under the 2018 PWSA budget. Revenue from local ratepayers — some $44 million — is covering the work this year, part of ongoing efforts to keep the hazardous metal out of drinking water.

“We’re absolutely thrilled at the award” from Pennvest, PWSA spokesman Will Pickering said. The funding is probably the biggest

grant and loan offering that the state authority has ever supplied to PWSA, he said.

PWSA sought the money, which includes a $13.7 million grant and a $35.4 million loan. PWSA is responsible for repaying the latter — with a 1 percent interest rate — over 30 years.

“Pittsburgh has been making great strides to protect its drinking water, and this announcement from Gov. [Tom] Wolf gives that work a tremendous lift,” Mayor Bill Peduto said in a statement. The investment “will have positive impacts for decades to come,” he said.

Under a state order, PWSA is supposed to replace at least 7 percent of its lead service lines each year after high lead readings in some homes triggered the intervention in 2016. The lines connect indoor plumbing in individual buildings to water mains beneath the street.

Those service lines are split into two sections: a publicly owned segment that’s closest to the main, and a privately owned segment that completes the connection into the building. The state money will let PWSA keep replacing both segments when they contain lead, but property owners must give written consent for the private-side work, Mr. Pickering said.

PWSA will send letters in November to customers whose connections may be eligible for replacement in 2019. The authority plans to focus on lower-income areas, although it wasn’t immediately clear Wednesday which neighborhoods may be targeted. More details should be available in a week or so, Mr. Pickering said.

Still, state House Speaker Mike Turzai, R-Bradford Woods, flayed the state funding as a taxpayer-funded bailout to “address years of city and PWSA mismanagement.” The effort takes “much-needed money from water and sewer projects across the state,” he said in a statement.

Another frequent PWSA critic, Allegheny County Controller Chelsa Wagner, questioned PWSA’s expenses, given how many connections it intends to replace. In some cities, $49 million would be enough to replace many thousands more lead pipes, Ms. Wagner said, calling for more efficiency.

Mr. Pickering said PWSA is looking at where it can “create efficiencies and potentially lower costs.” The overwhelming majority of costs are for construction-related tasks, such as tying new service lines into water mains, he said.

“These construction contracts are all publicly bid, so we’re limited by what we receive from interested parties,” Mr. Pickering said. PWSA found its construction costs to be comparable to similar urban areas such as Milwaukee and Washington, D.C., he said.

PWSA has estimated 12,500 of some 71,000 residential connections contain lead.