The search for lead water pipes in the state is near the end and some communities are already notifying residents of what they’ve found.
Sioux City Utilities Director Brad Peutz says it’s part of a federal program to get rid of lead pipes. “All lead service lines, all galvanized lines requiring replacement, and those lines that are unknown to either be replaced or verified within ten years,” he says. Peutz says residents who have a line that needs attention will soon get a letter.
“Sioux City has roughly 26,000 service connections. Of those 26,000 service connections, the city has identified roughly 7,300 service connections that could potentially need replaced by that November of 2037 date, the focus at this time is outreach,” he says. The Iowa DNR is overseeing the federal program. A spokesperson for the DNR says they are still compiling all the survey results and they don’t yet have an exact statewide count on how many pipes need to be replaced.
(By Woody Gottburg, KSCJ, Sioux City)