On December 17, 2025, the Sewage and Water Board convened for an informational meeting regarding the Lead Service Line Replacement (LCRI) program due to a lack of initial quorum. The meeting focused on the status of federal funding, the procedural necessity of re-bidding a project management contract, and public health mitigation strategies while awaiting full program deployment.
Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to today's uh public works uh meeting. We're gonna give it a minute uh to see if we can get a quorum. If not, we'll start the meeting as an informational meeting so that we can respect uh everyone's time. Uh happy Wednesday, everybody. We'll get started in a minute. Yeah, let's yeah, the call roll call, please. Thank you, Councilmember. We'll call. Councilmember Thomas. Present. Councilmember Jerry South. Councilmember Harris. Councilmember King. Councilmember Green. We have two members. We do not have a quorum. We don't have a quorum, so we can't approve the minutes. And I don't think there's anything official to uh uh to vote on, but if we could have uh our uh surgeon waterboard director uh come and start his presentation, we'll get right into the meeting. Introduce yourselves and who's at the uh table with you, and we'll get started. When you're ready. Okay, good morning. I'm Randy Heyman, executive director of the Sewage and Water Board. I have with me today Gray Lewis, Chief Financial Officer, and Becky Becca Johnsey, Deputy Superintendent of Water Programs. I appreciate having the opportunity today to come to speak with you about the lead service line replacement program. Next slide. Yes. As you know, EPA's lead and copper rule improvements were published in January 2024 with a compliance start date of 2027. As part of our stakeholder outreach, the lead service line replacement program was presented to the public works committee in October 2024 to increase awareness around this important issue. For the LCRI, all lead service lines are required to be removed by 2037. This equates to a cost of approximately 1 billion dollars to replace all lead service lines in Arleens Paris. Uh, this effort is mostly unfunded. SWIPNO has secured 86 million dollars in SRF loans, and we anticipate closing on another 66 million SRF loans in Q1 of 2026. The requirement of the funding is that the public and private side must be lead-free to be reimbursed. LCRI requires publication of LSL inventory and annual notification to homeowners with lead galvanized and unknown service line. Customers received notification letters in 2024 and 25. This year we prioritized a contract for service line inspections and replacements geared toward protecting our most risk residents at New Orleans schools and early learning centers. And in the diagram we have here. However, particles from lead pipes and plumbing fixtures can leach into the water as it travels from the treatment plant to the taps. The public service line runs from the water main to the property line, and the private service line runs from the property line to the point of entry of the residents. The water service lines are typically composed of copper, plastic, galvanized steel, lead, and they are classified as unknown if we do not have a definite definitive record showing the material type. The lead materials, the lead service line inventory is governed by lead and copper rule improvements for the EPA. Next, you have our public interactive inventory map. SWIPNO published an interactive inventory map in October 2024, where customers can look up their address and view their public utility and private customer side service line. It's important to understand there are two sides to the line. First part of is the public side, and then the second part is the private side, which the homeowner is responsible for at this time. For our inventory, Swimot has 75% unknowns. A service line is classified as unknown when we do not have a definitive record showing the customer's material type. Regulations state that unknowns must be treated as lead service lines until verified otherwise. This map also incorporates predictive modeling performed by Blue Conduit that shows the likelihood of service lines being lead or non-lead.