The city of Wichita has alerted about 6,000 water customers that their pipes could be at higher risk for lead contamination and will need to be replaced under the federal government’s new lead pipe rules.
The new rules, laid out by the Biden-Harris administration in October, require drinking water systems to identify and replace lead and some galvanized steel service lines between 2027 and 2037. Exposure to lead can harm children’s growth and development.
Wichita completed an inventory of its water service lines in October, finding 16 lead pipes and 5,958 galvanized pipes that require replacement. Galvanized pipes are iron or steel pipes that have been dipped in a coating that can contain lead; lead particles can also attach to the surface of galvanized pipes.
“The results so far have been in the range of what we expected,” Laura Quick, the Utilities Optimization program manager with the city’s Public Works department, wrote in an email to KMUW. In total, the city has about 162,000 water service lines.
Under the new rules, water lines on both sides of a property line – public and private – are under scrutiny. All the lead and galvanized pipes identified so far in Wichita are privately-owned lines that carry water to individual properties.
The city hasn’t given property owners any timeline or requirements for replacement so far.
Federal rules don’t specify who will pay to replace lead or galvanized pipes on private property, said Cathy Tucker-Vogel, the public water supply section chief with the Kansas Department of Health and Environment.
“That’s a decision made at the local level,” Tucker-Vogel said. “The regulation does not require public water supply systems to pay for the privately-owned lines.”
That’s been a point of contention for some, including Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach. Last February, Kobach joined a coalition of other states in arguing that the cost to replace all lead pipes is too high and will ultimately fall on property owners.
Estimates of replacing all lead lines range from $28 billion to $60 billion nationwide, while the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law only set aside $15 billion for lead service line replacement.
Kansas gets $28.6 million annually for five years from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to replace lead and galvanized water service lines, Tucker-Vogel said. She said those dollars will dry up at the end of 2026.
“Once the funding is gone, there’s no guarantee there’ll be additional funding,” Tucker-Vogel said. “So, it would be a good idea if water systems know they’ve got to replace lead service lines that they go ahead and start working on it now.”
In an email, Quick wrote that the city plans to apply for funding before the end of 2026.
But the city’s first priority is identifying about 39,000 remaining “unknown” water service lines, where what material was used is unclear. Most of these are on the private side, though about 3,000 are also on the city’s side.
“The EPA is requiring all utilities to develop a lead service line replacement plan in 2027,” Quick wrote in an email to KMUW. “We will develop options for property owners after we eliminate the remaining unknowns from our inventory or in 2027, whichever is soonest.”
The city will use inspections and predictive modeling to identify unknown service lines.
Wichita also notified water customers whose water service lines are made of an unknown material. The city is asking these customers to report information regarding their service line’s material to water@wichita.gov or 316-WICHITA (942-4482).
Wichitans can also search what service line material the city has on record by address using a new city tool.
