Context

Pittsburgh is located in western Pennsylvania and sits at the confluence of three rivers: Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio river. It’s geographic location made Pittsburgh boom as an economic, transportation hub and became known as the “steel city” during America’s Industrial Revolution. The same water that was needed for industry has been and still is the city’s source of drinking water.

Today, Pittsburgh’s drinking water is drawn from only one of the rivers, the Allegheny River, and is drawn and distributed by the Pittsburgh Water and Sewage Authority (PWSA). PWSA services most of the city with water through 965 miles of water lines and stores water in 5 reservoirs and 11 storage tanks.

Pittsburgh is in a humid continental zone, and stress on the city’s water and sewage infrastructure has been increasing due to above normal annual rainfall events. The city’s highest records of annual rainfall have been in the 21st century with the highest being in 2018 at 57.83 inches of rain. This is attributed to effects of climate change and this trend is expected to continue.

Water Concerns

Pittsburgh has three main water concerns: combined sewer overflow, stormwater management, and lead contamination. However there has been significantly more attention and funding around green stormwater infrastructure. PWSA has a capital budget of $!47.8 million for green stormwater infrastructure (GSI), while the Lead Service Replacement Program is allocated $94,250 in the authority’s 2018-2022 capital budget. The City of Pittsburgh’s fiscal year 2019 capital budget sets aside $23 million on a combined green streets and GSI project, while none is allocated towards lead pipe replacement or remediation. Though PWSA received a $49 million funding from the PA Infrastructure Investment Authority (PennVest) for lead service replacement, there is still considerably less funding or attention on Pittsburgh’s lead contamination. In order to emphasize the urgency of alleviating lead contamination in the city’s water, this blog entry will focus on this one overarching issue.

In 2016, Pittsburgh had a lead water water crisis and the city’s water was found to have 22 ppb of lead. That not only violated health requirements but also surpassed lead amount in Flint, Michigan.

Lead comes from eroding laterals. According to a PWSA, about 21-28% of the city’s water lines are still of lead manufacture, however research from the University of Pittsburgh predicts that about 54% of the water lines are made of lead. This inconsistency of information of lead pipe locations is only one complication in this water issue. There is an added complication with infrastructure ownership and responsibility for replacement. Though legislation approved to let the city replace both private and public sides of the water lines, PWSA does not replace the private side if the connecting public line does not have lead and the cost burden falls on homeowners regardless of PWSA involvement.

Not only is the infrastructure outdated and leaching lead, the 2016 lead crisis put a spotlight on years of neglect, dysfunction, and mismanagement within PWSA. Veolia, a private French company that also oversaw Flint’s water supply change, was overseeing management of PWSA from 2012-2015. Veolia was hired with the promise to help a financially struggling PWSA make money, which resulted in the dismissal of employees (including safety and water quality managers) and poor decisions such as unauthorized change of anti-corrosion chemicals that actually caused lead to leach more. Over 100 criminal charges were filed against PWSA for violations of the PA Safe Drinking Water Act.

Furthermore, with cost burdens falling on rate payers and private home owners for their own laterals, there are concerns for equity of water contamination on top of the growing income disparity among the rich and poor in Pittsburgh. Research by Michael Blackhurst from the University of Pittsburgh’s Social and Urban Research center (UCSUR) graphs neighborhoods according to predicted lead exposure, number of young children, and annual household income. The neighborhoods with most exposure and/or vulnerable children- such as Beltzhoover, Terrace Village, Homewood North, and Bedford Dwellings- are predominantly low-income, black neighborhoods. Lateral replacements cost anywhere from $4,000-$15,000 at the same time that PWSA’s rate is expected to increase up to 50% (a $15/month increase) into 2020.

What PWSA has been doing so far? Pittsburgh has since built two orthophosphate stations that manage the anti-corrosion chemicals being put into the water. PWSA provides clean water stations and water filters anytime there is an advisory warning. Family’s with a low enough income bracket can receive 100% funded lateral replacements, however that is only a small fraction of households with lead lines and effective alleviation of lead contamination requires a complete system-wide replacement of pipes. Slow process of identifying lead pipes through curb box inspections has been improving existing data, however the efforts are piece-meal and do not appear nor has PWSA publicized how they decide lead replacement location prioritization (see map below). Partial replacements in fact increases lead contamination. While PWSA created a 12-year plan to replace pipes by 2030 and a goal to replace 7% of the lead lines each year (a goal that seems arbitrary given the inconsistency in data) , it is not ambitious enough. 12 years of exposure to neurotoxins has severe impacts on brain development and should be a high priority public safety concern.

Proposed Solutions

New revenue streams

There is simply not enough funding for Pittsburgh to have a more aggressive timeline in replacing all lead pipes. Even with the $49 million funding from Pennvest, this funding support won’t go very car considering PWSA just signed a $35.9 million contract in January to replace lead service lines for 2019 alone. The possibility of privatization is not possible without a public uproar after Veolia’s involvement. City of Pittsburgh needs to prioritize existing funding into resolving the lead contamination, but also get creative with new revenue streams.

Madison, Wisconsin was the first city in America to replace 100% of its lead water lines. They funneled revenue by leasing cell towers on water tanks to companies such as AT&T to fund replacement and subsidize lateral replacement on the private side. Similarly, Pittsburgh’s city council in 2018 approved for a portion of transfer tax in real estate transactions to be put towards the new affordable housing program. Pittsburgh has already done creative financing, and should consider areas where money can be allocated to lead replacement program and subsidies. Currently, City agencies who own land often rent vacant land and sites for a variety of uses. Pittsburgh should consider putting a portion or all of the revenue from leasing public land (or at least certain types of public land) to private entities into the lead replacement program. This has the potential to reduce financial strain on PWSA and rate-payers, and could open more funding to subsidize lead replacement for more people.

Prioritize Vulnerable Areas

There needs to be more research and data collection on lead pipe locations. With what research has been done at UCSUR using indicators to predict where lead laterals likely are (see map below), PWSA should be transparent on how they are deciding lead replacement areas. Areas that are the most exposed and have greatest amount of vulnerable children (who experience the greatest health impacts from exposure to lead) should be prioritized. In addition to lateral replacement prioritization, Pittsburgh needs stronger education programming in communicating risks, access to resources, information on funding assistance qualifications, and rebuilding the public trust for PWSA to enter private properties to replace water lines.

Subsidize Homeowner Cost Burdens

Related to the previous strategy, while PWSA should seek funding to subsidize all homeowners, priority for funding should go towards supporting low-income households. In addition, while water rate increase is understandable for PWSA to finance their operations to fix mistakes and properly manage the city’s water and sewage infrastructure, PWSA should consider a smaller hike in water rates for low-income households. Pittsburgh’s equity indicator score report rated Pittsburgh a 55 out of 100 due to disparities in health, criminal justice and poverty rates between black and white residents. As the wealthy get wealthier and the poor stay poor, the cost of burden to pay water rates and replacement lead lines that falls much harder on low-income households. And for successful alleviation of lead contaminants in water, ALL lead lines must be replaced. Subsidizing costs will incentivize homeowners to get their water lines replaced if there is financial assistance.

Rainwater Harvesting

As mentioned earlier, Pittsburgh experiences water quality issues at other points in addition to lead leaching through pipes. With the sewage overflow and urban run-off polluting Pittsburgh’s singular water source, the Allegheny River, water could still be contaminated even once all the lead water lines are replaced. Pittsburgh would benefit from an expanded water portfolio that is not dependent on a singular source. With PWSA’s limited capacity and funding, rainwater harvesting is an economical way of adding a water source that leverages the city’s increased rain fall and has potential to mitigate some burden off PWSA’s if there is less dependence on service lines. Rainwater harvesting can occur site-by-site with home installations and would not have to run through the traditional water lines and run the risk of lead corrosion from old infrastructure in the interim of PWSA 12-year plan. The multi-facted benefits include reducing water that rushes through Pittsburgh that causes flash floods, landslides, and contributes to combined sewage overflow.

Conclusion

While Pittsburgh has seen an economic revival after the fall of the steel industry, becoming the next tech hub or industrial-chic, hipster haven without drinkable water amounts all progress to nothing. Pittsburgh must take more aggressive measures to alleviate the presence of neurotoxins in their water.

Sources

Capital Budget, FY 2019 City of PIttsburgh; http://apps.pittsburghpa.gov/redtail/images/3781_2019_ICA_Capital_Budget_092118_209.pdf

Equity
https://www.nextpittsburgh.com/latest-news/is-pittsburgh-becoming-a-more-equitable-city-second-annual-equity-indicators-report-finds-ongoing-disparities/
https://www.post-gazette.com/local/city/2019/04/18/City-s-second-equity-indicators-report-shows-racial-disparities-still-prominent-in-Pittsburgh/stories/201904180148

Michael Blackhurst, University of Pittsburgh https://ucsur.pitt.edu/environ/Lead_CE.html

PWSA capital budget 2018-2022,
https://www.publicsource.org/will-green-or-gray-infrastructure-solve-the-problem-of-raw-sewage-running-into-the-pittsburgh-regions-rivers/
Criminal Charges Against PWSA, https://www.wtae.com/article/criminal-charges-against-pittsburgh-water-and-sewer-authority/26113254
https://theintercept.com/2018/05/20/pittsburgh-flint-veolia-privatization-public-water-systems-lead/

PWSA Management Issues
https://archive.triblive.com/local/allegheny/12669582-74/consultant-finds-many-failures-dysfunctional-culture-at-pwsa
https://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/editorials/2017/08/30/Tortured-water-PWSA-is-the-city-s-No-1-problem-to-fix/stories/201708310053
https://www.post-gazette.com/local/city/2019/01/28/PWSA-Pittsburgh-accelerate-lead-line-replacements-water-health/stories/201901270183
http://lead.pgh2o.com/your-water-service-line/#1531832900503-54364083-5d1f
Solutions
https://madison.com/wsj/news/local/environment/years-before-flint-s-scandal-madison-did-unusual-costly-lead/article_92caa8ab-5d0e-5c01-a48a-210d72828240.html
https://www.chicagoreporter.com/to-remove-lead-pipes-chicago-can-learn-from-madisons-example/
https://www.alleghenyfront.org/whats-the-best-way-to-protect-people-from-lead-tainted-drinking-water/