Milwaukee leaders say they want to investigate whether houses built between in the decade before the city started requiring service lines to be made of copper are getting drinking water from lead pipes.
Milwaukee officials said Friday that they are planning to require property owners to replace lead pipes running beneath their lots because local residents too often pass on opportunities to get rid of the service lines on their own.
Experts, and even some regulators, say existing laws are failing to protect Wisconsin and the nation from harmful exposure to lead that leaches into drinking water from aging plumbing — a danger shown by the public-health emergency in Flint, Mich.
A Milwaukee Water Works roofing project bid request has been amended again, bumping the small-business enterprise requirement back up to its original 20 percent.
Milwaukee’s latest request to raise water rates threatens to reopen an old dispute about whether the city is doing enough to attract large, industrial water users.