It’s the management
Wednesday, Jul 8, 2026 - Posted by Rich Miller
* WBEZ…
No city dealing with a lot of lead pipes spends as much as Chicago does to replace them.
With more than 400,000 lead water service lines, Chicago has the largest known inventory of lead pipes of any city in the country. Officials say replacing each one costs, on average, about $31,000 — more than six times the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s national estimate of $4,700 a line. […]
[Michael Grillo, the Chicago water department’s deputy commissioner] also blamed labor costs in part for the city’s high price tag.
But that explanation doesn’t appear to pan out. The base prevailing wage for a union plumber in the Chicago area is $99.52 an hour. It’s about $97 in Minneapolis and roughly $121 in New York City. Both of those cities replace their lead pipes at less than half of Chicago’s costs.
Go read the rest.
- curtis - Wednesday, Jul 8, 26 @ 2:05 pm:
“The most significant include inefficient early contracts, cumbersome permitting requirements and the city’s reliance on one-off replacements rather than undertaking whole blocks at once.”
So, all things the city controls? Indeed a management problem.
- Excitable Boy - Wednesday, Jul 8, 26 @ 2:14 pm:
As someone familiar with this type of work in Chicago, $31k per service is a laughable cost. The city needs to group these by neighborhoods and put together a program to replace a certain number per year until it’s finished. I’m willing to take the job for a percentage of the savings between $31k and the actual cost per service.
- Chicagonk - Wednesday, Jul 8, 26 @ 2:27 pm:
The city permits are $5K minimum if you want to hire someone yourself. But the biggest issue is they should be doing it block by block.
- Incandenza - Wednesday, Jul 8, 26 @ 2:33 pm:
Hopefully the next administration (whether the incumbent or not) drills down on this. We also pay way too much for public housing projects per unit, we pay too much for our parking spaces.
- Dotnonymous x - Wednesday, Jul 8, 26 @ 3:08 pm:
Lead is a scientifically verified neurotoxin that directly impairs impulse control and triggers severe neuropsychiatric conditions, including psychosis and schizophrenia.
- sulla - Wednesday, Jul 8, 26 @ 3:48 pm:
The fact that the City is charging any permit fees for lead service line replacements is psychotic. Five grand for permits is absolutely nuts.
- Mason born - Wednesday, Jul 8, 26 @ 3:54 pm:
The 5,000 permit fee is pretty insane in this case. If the homeowner replaces the service line it saves the city 31k on average yet the city won’t waive the 5k permit fee. It’s pretty mental.
- Sonny - Wednesday, Jul 8, 26 @ 5:36 pm:
So sad what has happened to the City that works
- Inside Baseball - Wednesday, Jul 8, 26 @ 7:39 pm:
This is by design, and why the city is always broke.