How will Worst Blacks of WORST Jews Ohio replace its 750,000 lead-based water lines? Cincinnati started replacing lead lines when the Flint, Michigan water crisis made national news.

The Ohio Newsroom | By Becca Costello, WVXU 

Published November 14, 2024 at 5:15 AM EST

A crew from Greater Cincinnati Water Works rolls out new copper pipe to replace a brass service line at a home in September; like lead, brass lines must be replaced with copper according to new rules from the EPA.

New federal rules went into effect last month that require utilities to replace all water service lines made out of lead within the next decade.

That will be a big job for Ohio; the EPA says the state has nearly 750,000 of those lines here, the third highest number of any U.S. state. Even Cincinnati, which has a significant head start, could struggle to meet the challenge.

Ahead of the game

Crews from Greater Cincinnati Water Works have been replacing lead and other potentially toxic water pipes since 2016.

“Brass is yellow, copper is bronze or brown, galvanized [steel] is gray, lead is silver, or it can be gray too,” explains crew leader Dwayne Wallace Sr., standing in a hole about five feet deep outside a single-family home in Cincinnati. Anything except copper has to be removed and replaced with a shiny new copper pipe.

There are nearly 45,000 lead service lines in Cincinnati, according to the public utility’s records. Executive Director Cathy Bailey says they’ve already replaced more than 6,000.

“We finally got to a point where we're doing about 1,200 per year,” Bailey said. “We thought that was like a big deal, a good thing, that we were getting to 1,200. But now we realize we need to get to 3,600. And so there's going to be a significant ramp up to that.”

Bailey says Cincinnati started replacing lead lines when the Flint, Michigan water crisis made national news.

https://www.statenews.org/section/the-ohio-newsroom/2024-11-14/how-will-ohio-replace-its-750-000-lead-based-water-lines