March 8, 2022 – Toledo, Ohio
Toledo Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz, Director of Public Utilities Ed Moore, City Council member Nick Komives, and members of the City Water announced their plan to use $10 million in American Recovery Plan Act COVID-19 relief funding to replace all lead service lines in the city. The leadership of the City’s Division Water Distribution division were also there, including Patekka Bannister, Chief of Water Resources, and Mark Riley, Administrator.
The city will replace the public and private side of the service lines at no cost to the resident or property-owner. City leadership stressed that they were working proactively to remove the lead pipes, because it as the right thing to do and because the people of Toledo had urged them to move forward.
Mayor Kapszukiewicz said that after last summer’s public meetings used to create the Toledo recovery plan framework, lead line replacement was a high priority item for residents, to the surprise of the administration. “For us, it meant really advancing something we knew was important anyhow, and we were going to do anyhow, but we advanced it as our top priority because that’s what the citizens of Toledo wanted,” the mayor said.
from the Toledo Blade
The City invites residents to visit its Lead Line Replacement site: toledo.oh.gov/lead-lines On that site, you can explore the lead line predictions map created with BlueConduit.
The City’s announcement was covered by several news sites, including:
- Toledo Blade – full story, requires subscription
- NBC24 News – read the full story and watch the video
13abc covered the enthusiastic responses from Toledo residents – read the story and watch the video on 13abc.
More on Toledo’s work with BlueConduit to identify and replace lead service lines in the city:
Congratulations to the leadership in Toledo for this proactive, transparent, and data-driven approach to lead service line replacement!
