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Local municipalities could be held responsible for replacing water pipes all the way up to a private residence under an unfunded mandate by the state of Michigan.
Houghton City Manager Eric Waara explained the rule changes coming from the Department of Environmental Quality—now the Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE)–to the city council at their regular meeting Wednesday.
Calling it a political solution to an engineering problem, Waara said the city would have to replace the pipes if any component containing lead is discovered while performing work on the city’s main water lines.
“If we discover that there is a potential lead-containing component, according to the DEQ, in that service line, where we used to just replace that service line up to the shut off at the edge of the yard, the DEQ says we have to go right to the house,” said Waara. “I’m going to let that sink in for a minute.”
The city of Houghton will be conducting a service line survey to determine what the city currently has in place. Waara said the survey will help to index where all the lines are and where there may be questions.
“We don’t have any lead in our service lines that we know of, so we’re going to try to boil that list down to OK—we know exactly what we have here, we have to investigate over there. Public Works is working on that right now,” Waara said.
Because the state is saying replacing the line is the city’s responsibility and not the homeowner’s, Waara said some municipalities are looking at water rate increases to offset the cost.
At this time, Waara said the city does not have enough information to know if they have a big problem or not, but many of the service lines within the city have already been replaced.
“Every water system is different. Every one is built differently,” he said. “We’ve done a lot of replacement of those lines in past years.”
Waara said the city will continue working with the state as more information becomes available.
