Last month, Chicago officials said they wanted to speed up the replacement of lead lines. But the city does not plan to replace all lead pipes until 2077, three decades after a federal deadline. 

Chicago has twice as many lead service lines than any other city in the U.S. In 1986, the federal government banned lead service lines. Under Illinois law, Chicago has until 2077 to have all lead service lines replaced. However, experts at DePaul and elsewhere say solving this expensive problem will take longer than expected.  

But why does this matter? 

Getting rid of lead service lines is important because the lead can get into drinking water. According to the World Health Organization, there is no safe blood level of lead.

 “Once lead is in the body, particularly if it’s in our bones, it’s there to stay,” said James Montgomery, a DePaul professor in the College of Science and Health. “Phosphate is supposed to form on the inside of the pipe. It’s a protective coating that prevents the lead from leaching into the water.”

Montgomery said once the lead service lines are disconnected for any reason, it can cause the phosphorus coating to come off, releasing lead atoms into the water that people drink.

Since lead stays permanently within the body, it becomes a neurotoxin, which researchers say can lead to ADHD, severe aggression and possibly lowered IQ, especially in young children.

Older adults are also negatively affected by lead exposure, said Patrick MacRoy, a vice president for environmental health and water programs at Elevate, a Chicago nonprofit group that works on such issues as lead and renewable energy. They are more likely to have heart attacks and other cardiovascular problems, along with bone health and osteoporosis.

The city has already drawn $70 million to $90 million of a $325 million loan from the federal and state government to replace the piping. But some say more resources are still needed. MacRoy says Chicago needs more funds to focus on replacing lead service lines to decrease exposure. 

“It’s a serious challenge,” MacRoy said. “It’s going to take a lot of money.”

Joseph Schwieterman, DePaul professor of urban planning and public service, said Chicago has waited for change and members of the community are anticipatory. 

 “The needs are almost overwhelming,” Schwieterman said. “But (Chicago has) never developed a coherent, gradual plan to solve this problem, and the public is getting quite impatient.” 

He also noted that Black and brown communities are disproportionately affected because they have the highest percentages of lead service lines, partly because housing on the South Side was built when lead pipes were the norm.

“The south has been burdened with seeing infrastructure frozen in time, and that’s a terrible problem,” Schwieterman said.

Meanwhile, building and homeowners in the Loop and neighborhoods to the north have often had more economic resources to replace much of the lead pipe there.

Schwieterman believes that because lead poisoning is a “silent killer,” it has led people to “punt the problem and let the next generation worry about it.”

No matter what, Schwieterman said, a “half century is beyond anybody’s realistic planning horizons.”

“We’re in a category all to our own, and that’s not a good place to be,” Schwieterman said.

Explaining how Chicago ended up with so many lead pipes, Montgomery said the plumbers union in Chicago “really loved lead pipes” because they were easy to bend and solder in place. Plumbers’ love for lead pipes drove their unions to influence the city code in their favor, he said.

That changed when the federal government banned lead pipes and other products such as paint in 1986. According to the Chicago Department of Public Health, the blood lead content in residents has dropped drastically since the 1990s.

Just because the blood lead content is not as high as it used to be does not mean the effects can’t be seen, according to MacRoy.

“We’re still robbing society of potential as a result of ongoing lead exposure,” MacRoy said.

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