最新杏吧原创

ST. LOUIS 鈥� Replacing thousands of lead pipes in the city within the next decade, as required by a new federal mandate, will cost tens of millions of dollars, according to early estimates.

And City Hall doesn鈥檛 know how it will pay for all of it.

鈥淲e鈥檙e still reviewing exactly what鈥檚 going to need to be done and what the funding side looks like,鈥� city spokesperson Rasmus Jorgensen said on Thursday.

After nearly a year of deliberation, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency finalized a new policy this week requiring the nation鈥檚 drinking water providers to remove virtually every lead line in the ground.

President Joe Biden hailed it as public health breakthrough, greatly reducing Americans鈥� exposure to a neurotoxin that is particularly dangerous to infants and children. 鈥淲e鈥檙e finally addressing an issue that should鈥檝e been addressed a long time ago in this country,鈥欌�� he said.

But it鈥檚 going to be expensive. And it鈥檚 a bit of a curveball for 最新杏吧原创, which has until now focused mostly on mitigating the risk from lead pipes with chemicals rather than yanking pipes out of the ground.

One thing is for certain: There are plenty of lead service lines, which take water from city-owned water mains into private homes and are technically owned by customers. A recent analysis by the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental advocacy group, estimated the city has the .

Experts . But officials here say that for more than 20 years, the city-owned water department has successfully mitigated the risk by treating its water with chemicals that minimize the absorption of lead from pipes. They say testing has shown the treatment has kept lead levels in customers鈥� homes well below the new federal limit, 10 parts per billion, announced earlier this week.

The city has made some effort to identify lead lines, and officials know there are about 9,000 service lines with lead and about 46,000 without. But that leaves about 58,000 with a status of 鈥渦nknown.鈥�

It wasn鈥檛 until late July that the city set aside $200,000 in federal money to hire a contractor to go through historical records and fill out its inventory.

Jorgensen, the city spokesperson, said the city has not been removing any lead service lines because the city doesn鈥檛 own them.

That stands in contrast to some colleagues. In 最新杏吧原创 County, Missouri American Water Co., a private firm, has spent millions of dollars since 2017 replacing customers鈥� lines as it updates adjacent water mains. In July, company leaders said they had replaced about one-third of the problematic pipes they think exist there, knew where to find another one-third, and were asking customers for help finding the rest.

But Missouri American has had the money to pay for removal work, and the ability to recoup it from its 350,000 customers in 最新杏吧原创 County.

The city鈥檚 water department, meanwhile, has been strapped in recent years, going more than a decade without a rate hike until last year and burning through reserves to maintain regular operations and aging infrastructure.

The EPA estimated in late 2020 it would cost between $2,500-$4,000 to replace each customer-side service line. If that鈥檚 true, the cost of replacing only the 9,000 or so lead service lines known to the city would be at least $22 million and as much as $36 million 鈥� or nearly half of the water division鈥檚 budget this year.

Federal officials have set aside $15 billion to assist the nationwide effort, and said Thursday that another $2.6 billion would be made available, including $40.5 million for Missouri. But it also estimated total costs could be as much as $30 billion over the next decade.

Jorgensen, the city spokesperson, said the water department has applied for $5 million in federal money held by the state for lead line replacement.

The water department will also be reaching out early next month to customers whose lines contain lead or unknown material.