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Justin Keichler | November 10, 2021
Public Works Director Sean Dorsey presented his 2022 budget at the Mount Prospect Joint Village Committee and Finance Committee seminar on October 12. In the early days of Dorsey's speech, Vince Grochocinski, a member of the Finance Committee, asked about the existence of lead pipes in rural houses and the larger pipes that enter them.
Since 1991, Mount Prospect has been testing for lead and copper in drinking water. Initially, the village was asked to test 100 households each year. During those years, they found almost no record of lead poisoning levels. In the following years, the village was approved to reduce the number of home tests to 30 and the frequency of tests to once every three years. In the past 30 years, there have been almost no cases of lead poisoning in the village.
However, recently federal and state laws have been updated, and each community is now required to inspect and count every household where lead is present in the pipeline. Since the inspection began, the village has processed 5,000 of the 12,000 customers. Among these 5,000 households, they found that some pipes of 500 households contained lead, which was less than expected in the village. Some houses are equipped with lead pipes, and some houses are equipped with copper pipes with lead joints. There are no lead joints in the copper pipes of houses built after 1986. One house that tested positive was the home of Mayor Paul Hoefert. However, he subsequently tested his water and proved safe.
Hoefert started discussing Flint, Michigan and their water crisis in 2014. Dorsey clarified Flint's incident and explained that Flint stopped adding phosphorus to the pipeline, which is a necessary coating process to protect minerals and metals from dissolving into stagnant water. After the deactivation of phosphorus, coupled with changing the water source, changed the chemical composition in the pipeline, drinking water proved to be toxic. Dorsey stated that this is not a problem in Mount Prospect.
Domestic plumbing inspections include checking the water mains of the water meters. "The goal is to check the plumbing that enters your home, enter your meter, and determine if it contains lead," Dorsey said. "We have to go door-to-door and look for everyone's cooperation." If lead is found in the pipeline, the responsibility for replacing the pipeline lies with the water supplier, such as the village and other private utility companies.
Dorsey said that the first step is to determine the number of houses and then compile the costs. When they have all the data, they will address the board of directors. Depending on the cost, they can apply for grants or low-interest loans to pay for the project. "In the final analysis, this will be our responsibility," Dorsey said.
Grochocinski asked about the main pipeline to the service pipeline. Grochocinski asked if those were ever lead pipes. Dorsey replied that they usually do not have lead. He said that the oldest pipe in the village is cast iron and dates back to the 1920s. He said that most of the rural pipelines have been replaced in daily rural projects and have been updated for many years.
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