City ahead of schedule on replacing home lead water lines
Plan is to replace 12 percent this year, more than double the goal
Ferndale is expected to more than double the number of lead water service lines it is required to replace by the end of the year.
Ferndale and other cities such as Royal Oak, Oak Park, Hazel Park and Birmingham have been required to replace at least 5 percent of lead service lines annually over the next 20 years by the state’s department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE).
The order followed routine annual random testing of water in homes that showed some elevations of lead in water more than a year ago.
Under new state laws, the elevations mean communities statewide had to come up with a plan to replace lead water service lines, which are actually owned by property owners.
Lead lines were installed by builders mostly in older homes and are not part of the city’s water system, which has no lead issues.
At Monday’s Ferndale City Council meeting officials will discuss progress in replacing the lines by the city’s Department of Public Works.
City Manager Joseph Gacioch said city records many times don’t show whether a property has a lead line or not. DPW workers have to dig up front yards and replace the lines if they are lead.
“Last year, we were required to replace 413 lead service lines by Sept. 30 of this year,” Gacioch said. “As of Monday, we replaced 479 of those lines, and we expect to replace a total of about 12 percent of the (lead) lines in the city by the end of this year.”
Ferndale also increased its lead level testing from one to four times a year.
Dan Antosik, head of the city DPW, said there are a total of about 10,000 homes and other properties with water service in Ferndale.
But it will take a couple of years to get an accurate reading of how many of them have lead lines.
During diggings so far, DPW workers have found some of the older homes they checked didn’t have lead lines as expected, Antosik said.
“Right now there are 2,500 that we know have lead, and another 3,200 that are unknown, but likely contain lead,” he said.
Ultimately, that means more than half the homes in Ferndale have lead water service lines.
It takes DPW workers about half an hour to verify if a line is lead or not, and about three hours to replace each lead line.
Ferndale, got a $10 million low-interest loan from the state to fund the lead line replacement effort over the next five years, Gacioch said.
EGLE also gave the city a $400,000 grant to defray the cost of verifying which homes have lead lines, he added.
However, the total cost of replacing all the lead lines in Ferndale is expected to run about $25 million
The costs will be covered by changes in water rates to customers over the years.
Gacioch said Ferndale water customers won’t see the effect on their water bills until 2024.
Taking out the initial state loan of $10 million allowed Ferndale to accelerate the rate of replacing lead service lines in the city, he added.
“At Monday’s council meeting we want to shine a light on that,” Gacioch said. “We will be talking about increasing the rate of replacement for lead lines, public health and real dollars.” If Ferndale is able to sustain its current rate of replacing the lines, the city should have all lead lines replaced within a decade, instead of the minimum state requirement of doing it in 20 years, city officials said.
“It’s a lofty goal we’ve set,” Antosik said.