River Forest officials took another step toward replacing all lead service lines in the village at the March 25 Village Board meeting, approving a contract with Christopher B. Burke Engineering Ltd. for a year-one design of the lead replacement program.
Under the contract, which will cost $101,280, CBBEL also will prepare the 2024 lead inventory submittal as required by the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency by the April 15 deadline. The contract was approved unanimously in the consent agenda without discussion. CBBEL is a consulting engineering and surveying firm based in Rosemont, Il.
At the beginning of 2022, a new Illinois law – the Lead Service Line Replacement and Notification Act — went into effect, mandating that owners of any water supply must create an inventory of all lead service lines by 2023 and submit a preliminary plan in 2024 to the IEPA to replace all of them. The final replacement plan is not due to the state until 2027 and municipalities will have a further 20 years to get all of those lead service lines replaced regardless of how the village chooses to comply with the requirements. According to CBBEL, the IEPA requires each lead or galvanized service line connected to the community water supply be replaced in its entirety from the water main to the building plumbing at the first shutoff or 18 inches inside the building.
As is common in municipalities throughout Illinois, water service lines leading to buildings in River Forest constructed before 1986 are likely to feature lead. Because no safe blood level has been identified for young children, all sources of lead exposure for children should be controlled or eliminated, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has set the maximum contaminant level goal for lead in drinking water at zero because lead can be harmful to human health even at low exposure levels.
CBBEL officials will complete the project in five phases, each of which is expected to cost $2 million per year. The project would complete between 150 and 175 service replacements annually. Village officials are seeking low-interest loans and grants to assist with the funding.
In a memo to Matt Walsh, village administrator, Mike Reynolds, interim director of public works, explained that the village contracted with CBBEL in May 2022 to assist with the village’s IEPA Lead Service Line Replacement Program Project Plan. This plan provides an inventory of the material, whether known or unknown, of all of the water services within the village and the methods by which the village will replace those services. The plan also serves as the mechanism for entering the village in the State Revolving Fund – Low Interest Loan process.
In August 2022, the village submitted its five-year plan to the IEPA. A public hearing for the plan was conducted in March 2023 and the village received approval of the plan from the IEPA that month.
Reynolds said in the memo that of the 3,184 water services in the village, 2,559 have lead in some capacity whether private, public or both or their material composition is currently unknown. Per the IEPA, if a definitive identification of the line cannot be made, it must be treated as lead until determined otherwise, he added.
Specific project applications will be submitted to IEPA once they have been identified and designed, according to Reynolds. The elements of the village’s approved plan generally provide for all services to be replaced within an eight-year period. However, the projects are reviewed annually, have a five-year look ahead and can be appropriately sized to fit within the village’s annual capital budget. The plan and project schedule are flexible and will be amended on an annual basis and specific project planning will be consistent with available village funds and ability to fund any loans.
In addition to assisting the village in preparing IEPA loan applications, CBBEL officials said they will perform final design engineering and prepare bidding documents to allow the village to hire a contractor to complete the lead service line replacement work in compliance with IEPA procurement rules. CBBEL also will prepare notification and education materials to potentially affected building occupants as well as posting them in the village website.
