Sycamore officials to consider future lead service line replacement funding

SYCAMORE – City officials are expected to discuss Sycamore‘s options for the facilitation of future private lead service replacements at Monday’s City Council meeting, according to the meeting’s agenda.

In a July 23 letter addressed to City Manager Michael Hall, Public Works Director Matt Anderson wrote that as of July 1, only five lead service lines are left in Sycamore.

He estimated that it would cost $62,500 to replace those remaining lead service lines, which feed water from Sycamore’s public works into private properties.

“The city of Sycamore is committed to providing clean, safe and reliable drinking water to all residents,” Anderson wrote in the letter. “To support this mission, the Public Works Department is requesting consideration of modifying the Lead Service Line Assistance Program. If approved, the program would provide additional financial assistance to homeowners to help offset the cost of replacing their privately owned lead water service line.”

From 2022 through this summer, Sycamore conducted the first two phases of its private lead water service replacement program with funding from the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, allowing homeowners with a lead service line to get their lines replaced at no cost.

More than 470 lead water services were replaced for $4.5 million through the program, according to city documents.

Funding for that program has since been exhausted, however.

Anderson wrote that his department is seeking guidance from the city on how to facilitate future lead service line replacements, and he laid out three options in his letter to Hall.

Noting that the city is required to replace any city-owned or public portion of the service when a homeowner replaces a lead service line, Anderson wrote that the first option is to provide no financial assistance for private service line replacements.

His second idea is to offer property owners partial reimbursements for replacing lead service lines, and his last option is for the city to cover the entire cost of the replacements.