Chicago Has Hundreds of Thousands of Toxic Lead Pipes—and Millions of Unspent Dollars to Replace Them

This story is a partnership between Inside Climate News, Grist and WBEZ, a public radio station serving the Chicago metropolitan region.

CHICAGO—No U.S. city has more toxic lead pipes pumping water into people’s homes. And millions of federal and city dollars earmarked to replace them remain unused, a city official said Monday, at the same time that the city is struggling to keep up with deadlines to warn people of the risks.

Replacements of Chicago’s more than 412,000 confirmed and suspected lead service lines are lagging. The city 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 told a City Council committee on Monday that millions of federal and city dollars obligated for replacements haven’t been used yet. 

Since 2023, the city has drawn between $70 million and $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 the money much more quickly in 2026.

“We just found out we’ve got hundreds of millions of dollars sitting somewhere with nobody doing anything,” replied Alderman Raymond Lopez, who represents the 15th Ward on the South Side of the city. 

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

At Monday’s meeting, the city’s director of water quality surveillance, Patrick Schwer, said the Department of Water Management has now notified approximately 75,000—or 8 percent—of the list through the notification letters and an additional 120,000 through inserts with their bills, for a total of 22 percent.

Schwer said the department is still sending about 3,000 letters a week, and said the city usually gets a 10 to 12 percent 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 he also questioned the utility of notification letters.

“Spending $10 million just 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 actual service lines,” he said. 

Experts argue that awareness is a crucial public health intervention. People can reduce lead levels in their water by taking precautions, including filtering.

“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 loan 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. 

Altogether with the federal loan, 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. 

Advocates and experts have said completing the replacement efforts will require greater commitment from the mayor’s office and state legislators. Alderman Gilbert Villegas said he called for the hearing Monday to put the mayor and his administration “on notice.” 

“There needs to be a sense of urgency,” said Villegas, who represents part of the city’s Northwest Side. “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, a delay first reported by Inside Climate News, WBEZ and Grist. He also referenced how rising temperatures from climate change could amplify risks of lead dissolving into drinking water, making the matter increasingly pressing. 

“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 uncertainty about federal funding amid Trump administration cuts, 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 Alderman Matt Martin, who represents a ward on the city’s North Side.