Millions in loans to replace lead pipes pumping water into Chicago homes remain unspent

This story is a partnership between WBEZ, Grist and Inside Climate News.

Millions of dollars in federal and city loans dedicated to replacing lead pipes that pump water into people’s homes remain unused, a city official said Monday, at the same time that officials are struggling to keep up with state and federal deadlines to warn people of the risks.

At a City Council committee meeting on Monday, alderpersons questioned officials from the departments of water management and finance over slow lead pipe replacements and a monthslong delay in warning nearly a million Chicagoans about the risks of toxic lead pipes.

Chicago has more than 412,000 confirmed and suspected lead service lines — the most of any city in the country — but replacements are lagging. Chicago doesn’t anticipate replacing all its pipes until 2076, some 30 years after a federal deadline. Lead plumbing can leach the toxic metal into drinking water, causing brain damage, developmental delays and other harms. Water department officials say they can’t afford to move as quickly as federal deadlines require, but department of finance debt manager Brendan White said millions of federal and city dollars obligated for replacements haven’t been used yet.

Since 2023, the city has drawn $70 million to $90 million of an approximately $325 million federal loan for lead service line replacements that expires next year, White said, adding that the city expects to spend much more quickly in 2026.

“We just found out we've got hundreds of millions of dollars sitting somewhere with nobody doing anything,” 15th Ward Ald. Raymond Lopez said Monday.

The city was mandated by state and federal law to send out notifications that its drinking water could be unsafe to about 900,000 renters, homeowners and landlords by last November. As of early July, the city had only notified 7% of its list, according to investigation by WBEZ, Inside Climate News and Grist.

At Monday’s meeting, the city's director of water quality, Patrick Schwer, said the water management department has now notified about 75,000 — or 8% — of the list through the notification letters and an additional 120,000 through inserts with their bills, for a total of 22%.

Schwer said the department is still sending about 3,000 letters a week, and the city usually gets a 10% to 12% response rate from residents — including requests for water testing kits. The city would expect 100,000 test kit requests if it sent out the full 900,000 notifications, a demand the department couldn’t handle, he said.

“There are not enough physical lead-sampling bottles in the country to be able to fulfill those requests,” Schwer said.

But Schwer also questioned the utility of notification letters.

“Spending $10 million to send a bunch of letters that people throw in their trash seems like a waste of money when that money should be spent on replacing service lines,” he said.

Experts argue that awareness is a crucial public health intervention.

“Just because you assume that someone won't utilize information, doesn't absolve you from your responsibility as a department,” said Chakena Sims with the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Separately from the federal loans to replace lead service lines, the city has also issued its own debt to do this work — but it hasn’t used all of that money either. The water management department spent about $41.5 million of $60 million authorized for lead service line replacements in 2023, White said. In June, the department borrowed another $72 million — of which only about $5.4 million has been spent, he said.

All together with the federal loans, that leaves about $320 million in loans on the table.

The city estimates it will cost up to $14 billion to replace all of the city’s lead pipes, although experts say it should cost much less.

Experts have said the effort to complete the replacement efforts will require greater commitment from the mayor’s office and state legislators. Ald. Gilbert Villegas (36th) said he called for the hearing to put the mayor and his administration “on notice.”

“There needs to be a sense of urgency,” Villegas said. “It’s like this is a ticking time bomb, and we’ve got to make sure that there’s a plan in place, and we’re executing the plan.”

In a resolution, Villegas pointed out the late notifications and called out the city for its slow plan to replace the toxic pipes. He also referenced how rising temperatures from climate change could amplify risks of lead dissolving into drinking water, making the matter increasingly urgent.

“This hearing just reiterated that Chicagoans are still waiting a long time to learn even if they have a lead service line,” said Gabby Plotkin with the Illinois Environmental Council.

With continued uncertainty about federal funding, leaders said the city will have to get creative about locally sourced funding options.

“I don’t want to wait another 20 or 25 years until the federal government gets a bunch of leaders in place where they’re willing to work with us,” said 47th Ward Ald. Matt Martin.

Juanpablo Ramirez-Franco covers climate change and the environment for WBEZ and Grist. Follow him on X at @__juanpab.

Keerti Gopal covers the intersections between climate change, public health and environmental justice at Inside Climate News. Follow her on X at @keerti_gopal.