The Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority (PWSA) announced that it received a $14.6 million funding package for an upcoming lead service line replacement project.
The 2024 Neighborhood Lead Service Line Replacement Project will inspect all service lines in subsets of neighborhoods across the service area and replace any lead service lines at no cost to the customer. The work will remove the risk of lead service lines from homes and improve PWSA’s service line material inventory.
The funding was provided by the Pennsylvania Infrastructure Investment Authority (PENNVEST). The funding package is split between $10 million in grants and $4.6 million in loans. This predominantly grant-based award is money that does not need to be repaid and provides greater flexibility for investing limited ratepayer dollars. The project will replace approximately 1,200 lead service lines at priority locations within our service area.
“We are pleased to be able to continue our efforts to find and replace all public lead service lines in our system, while also replacing privately owned lead lines at no cost to the customer,” said PWSA CEO Will Pickering. “We thank the Shapiro Administration and the Board of PENNVEST for their continued support to make PWSA’s water system lead-safe with this grant-driven award.”
Since 2018, PWSA has received over $62 million in grants and $53 million in loans, totaling over $115 million in state funding from state and federal sources for lead line programs.
Since 2016, PWSA's Community Lead Response has replaced over 10,200 lead service lines throughout the PWSA service area, putting it halfway to its goal of replacing all lead in the system.
The 2024 Neighborhood Lead Service Line Replacement Project will use the following criteria to select work areas:
Blood lead levels in children provided by the Allegheny County Health Department’s (ACHD) universal testing program
Census income data and other data regarding women of childbearing age and children
PWSA historical and verification records of lead lines
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) environmental justice mapping data
This project is anticipated to kick off in early 2024.
