1-26-17 fdl city council to consider mandatory private lead water service line replacement ordinance

The Fond du lac city council will consider an ordinance at their next meeting to make private lead drinking water service line replacement mandatory when the public street portion of the line is replaced. The council discussed the issue at their meeting Wednesday night.  Public Works director Jordan Skiff says the hope is that a portion of the estimated $3000 cost to homeowners can be picked up through a loan program.   “We do have some funding from a safe drinking water loan that would allow us to offset maybe up to about a third or half of that,”  Skiff said.  Skiff says research by the EPA shows that when only part of the line is replaced lead levels actually become elevated for a couple of years.  “Something that we’ve done for many years that we thought was the right thing to do and that is to replace the public side when we’re there and we can actually might have been having a detriment to the water quality in the home for a period of time.”    The issue made national news following lead poisoning of drinking water  in Flynt, Michigan. Other communities across the state have already implemented programs to require replacement of private lead service pipes.