Denver Water's $700M project to replace lead pipes gains momentum
Updating Denver Water's pipes to meet new lead standards is a massive, multi-year project.
Denver Water says it's making progress on efforts to replace service lines that use lead in the pipes.
The city is working with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to remove about 60,000 service lines.
This project is supposed to meet the EPA's new rule requiring more testing and replacing lead lines over the next ten years.
"Lead is an extremely toxic pollutant, can lower IQ amongst our children, it can cause heart issues in older people and it can have an effect that's fundamentally detrimental to the health of people," said Bruno Pigott, principal deputy assistant administrator of the EPA's Water Office.
Denver Water is using money from its ratepayers and help from the bipartisan infrastructure bill to make the changes. The public entity serves about 1.5 million people in Denver and several surrounding suburbs such as Lakewood and Wheat Ridge.
Denver Water has interactive maps that show you if your property has lead pipes or is downstream from lead piping and ones that show a timeline of line replacement work.
According to Denver Water, a number of smaller projects in the northwest, northeast and southeast portion of the city, as well as at facilities outside of city limits have been completed.
Other projects near City Park West, Five Points, Highland, Montclair, Park Hill and Sloan Lake are in progress while projects in Clayton, Park Hill, Sloan Lake and Westwood are planned for 2025.
About a decade ago, testing showed that Denver's water had high levels of lead. Local officials in 2020 promised to replace between 64,000 and 84,000 lead pipes over 15 years.
The plan was approved in 2022 and is expected to cost around $700 million.