Elgin gets nearly $1 million in federal funding to replace lead service lines

Elgin officials gathered Wednesday at the Leo Nelson Riverside Water Treatment Plant to receive a prop check representing nearly $1 million in real funding secured by Democratic U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi for the city’s lead service line replacement project.

“The real check is in the mail, really,” the Schaumburg Democrat said as he talked about the $959,752 in federal funding the city will receive to continue tackling the replacement of roughly 11,000 remaining lead service lines in the city.

“No amount of lead is safe and that is why we go to the pains of not only removing it over here, from the water that’s coming out of this plant, but also trying to replace these lead service lines that remain in many of our homes throughout the country and the Chicagoland area,” Krishnamoorthi said.

Elgin Water Director Nora Bertram said the city has been ahead of the curve when it comes to the lead service line replacement issue, which it started addressing in 2017 before state and federal regulations had been enacted.

“At that time, the thought of a municipality paying for the entire lead service line replacement, both the public and the private side, was almost unheard of,” she said.

The city replaced about 900 service lines in 2023 at no cost to residents and is on track to do about 1,000 per year going forward, City Manager Rick Kozal said.

“Those 11,000 or so households with lead water service pipes are concentrated in the oldest original footprint of the city, and many of those households include at-risk families,” he said. “The city has and will continue prioritizing households with the greatest risk.”

Elgin has replaced more than 1,700 lead service lines since 2018. The average cost per household has been about $15,000.

Mayor David Kaptain said that by attacking the problem earlier than many communities, Elgin has developed a number of efficiencies.

“We save money on projects we’re doing with lead service lines and that allows us to do more,” he said. “We’re good stewards of the money we receive.”

Elgin’s source of drinking water contains no lead, but about one third of Elgin’s homes have lead service lines that allow the harmful contaminant to seep into the water.

Krishnamoorthi said the grants for community projects must be supported on a bipartisan basis to be approved. Funding for the project was unanimously passed by Republicans and Democrats before being authorized by President Joe Biden, he added.

“We are so proud to be a small part in your very large, and I would say, incredibly commendable project to make our families safe,” he said.

Krishnamoorthi’s Elgin stop was one of many he was making in the suburbs this week, including Pingree Grove on Monday to present $959,752 in funds to upgrade the village’s wastewater treatment facility.

Tuesday he visited East Dundee with $1 million in funding for the Fox River Valley Public Library System to help upgrade its facilities at the East Dundee Public Library building.