Whitefish Bay hears utility plan for lead service-line inventory, 10-year replacement pressure and customer notices

Whitefish Bay — City water-system consultants updated the Village Board on new federal lead-and-copper requirements on Aug. 5 and outlined the immediate compliance steps the village must take.

Tom, a City Water consultant, told trustees that the village must finish a service-line material inventory by Oct. 16 and submit a replacement plan by Dec. 16, 2024. He said the rule changes adopted in recent EPA revisions are changing sampling protocols (now requiring sequential first- and fifth-liter samples) and, in the agency’s current proposal, would require removal of public- and private-side lead service lines within 10 years after rule finalization. "You're going to have to remove your lead services within 10 years," Tom said, adding that utilities may request extensions in limited cases where replacement ratios exceed specified thresholds.

Why it matters: The new sampling and removal requirements shift how utilities identify risk and trigger replacement. Tom said the fifth-liter sample more directly samples water sitting in the public lateral and tends to show higher lead concentrations than the 1-liter tap sample used historically, a change that will affect compliance triggers and replacement timelines.

Inventory and math: Presenters described an inventory approach that classifies laterals as confirmed lead, suspected lead, confirmed non-lead and unknown, using permit records, meter work, visualizations and staff knowledge. The consultants discussed preliminary counts and calculations during the meeting; they reported the village’s active service-line total and their derived replacement ratio as exceeding the 3.9% threshold cited in the guidance (the presentation cited a roughly 5.2% replacement ratio), which is why staff said they expect to ask the state for a time extension rather than attempting an immediate 10-year full removal.

Costs and customer impact: The presentation laid out four scenarios — required replacement (service lines only over 15 years), an all-in approach that replaces mains and laterals, a hybrid plan and a do-nothing option (not recommended). Consultants provided conservative, high-end figures: required service-line replacement was presented at roughly $28.7 million over 15 years (a public-side per-service estimate near $8,000 was used in modeling), while an all-in mains-plus-laterals scenario produced substantially higher totals (presenters discussed sums approaching tens of millions more). Using a sample model, the speakers said the water portion of the average residential bill (an example using 18 CCF per quarter) could rise from roughly $94.40 to about $144.89 per quarter under one required-replacement scenario modeled over a 10-year window.

Funding options and private-side work: Consultants discussed funding sources (PSC loan/grant programs, federal infrastructure and EPA funds) and programs that let utilities collect funds through rates and provide partial grants to homeowners. Tom said some PSC programs permit a utility to finance private-side work by collecting in rates and offering a partial grant, but that the village would still need an ordinance and policies requiring homeowner cooperation and home access to inspect and replace private-side laterals.

Communications and next steps: Trustees pressed for clarity on who will perform sampling (the Northshore Water Commission was identified as the organization that collects bottles and handles sampling logistics), where full sample data will be published (individual sample results are available through DNR; summary 90th-percentile figures are included in annual water-quality reports), and how the village will notify residents. Staff told the board the village will control customer notification language (within DNR guidelines) and that the inventory will be published so residents can look up addresses. The next steps listed by presenters were completing the inventory (due Oct. 16), notifying customers within 30 days, finalizing sampling protocols and drafting the replacement plan for submission in December.

What’s next: Staff said the inventory and public-notification materials will be refined and returned to the board; no formal action on replacement funding or policy changes was taken at the meeting.