Naperville Finds Lead but Requires no Action

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The City of Naperville is nearly finished inspecting homes for lead water pipes.

Back in the fall they began the inspections to determine if the homes had water service constructed with lead pipes.

After determining only a small portion of Naperville could have lead service lines, due to their outlaw here prior to the 1930’s and a reduced amount in fixtures prior to 1986, the city narrowed their test site to roughly 800 homes.

“We’ve been in 727 homes, so we have about 140 some to go, about half of them have lead service lines, so were expecting out of the 860 to have roughly 400 homes or structures that have existing lead services lines in them,” said Jim Holzapfel, Director of Water & Wastewater Utilities.

While there is no action required by homeowners to have the service lines removed, the City of Naperville will offer a rebate program to help cover the cost of removal within the public right of way.

“So near side, if the water main is on the near side of the street we’ll credit them $1,500 for the removal of the service line. If it’s on the far side of the street its $2,500.

The additional costs to be covered by homeowners on the private side of the pipe could be between $5,000 and $8,000.

Every three years the city is mandated by the Illinois EPA to test for lead and copper, and every two weeks the city tests for water corrosion.

Naperville News 17’s Alyssa Bochenek reports.