City of Cape Girardeau receives $200k in grant funding for lead service line inventory project
CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. (KBSI) – Through a water infrastructure grant program, the City of Cape Girardeau is receiving close to $200,000 for its lead service line inventory project.
“Currently we’re doing inventory of all the water lines,” said J.J. Ridings, the local manager for the city’s water department.
Every year the city tests for lead within the city’s service lines. He says the inventory has taken over a year to put together.
“We have to have the inventory done by fall of next year,” he said. “In the meantime, getting this inventory is what this grant is for, and that’s going to go a lot towards figuring out where the lines are mostly on the customer’s side because we have a good idea of the Cape water system.”
Service lines are the pipes that connect a building’s plumbing to a public drinking water system, carrying water from the water main to the home or building.
The federal government banned using leaded pipe and solder in new plumbing systems built after 1986. Lead pipes can still be found in older cities.
“Cape Girardeau it’s not a real issue as far as the Cape water system but a lot of customers have galvanized lines and lead lines and that’s where the issues lie,” said Ridings.
Casey Brunke is the public works director for the city. She says they’re receiving around $161,000 from the grant funding, which helps with the inventory funding.
“We had applied for these funds some time ago, and unfortunately were unsuccessful at that time, but since learned that there were some monies available, and we had scored high enough before that our application has been accepted now,” said Brunke.
She adds that funding or not, the city has to complete the inventory of all service lines.
“It’ll just help free up some funds we would have used for the lead service line inventory to do other things with,” she said.
The extra funding will help with adding meters or fixing things public works in the city may need.
