This article is a partnership between Inside Climate News, Grist, and WBEZ, a public radio station serving the Chicago metropolitan area.
Illinois is in the midst of a public health crisis. Approximately 1.5 million pipes that carry drinking water to homes and businesses contain or are suspected of containing lead, a neurotoxin linked to cognitive, reproductive, and cardiovascular problems.
Now, public health and workforce advocates hope to turn the state’s long-overdue pipe replacement backlog into a statewide economic engine, creating up to 90,000 jobs over 10 years.
A recent report proposes a plan to replace the state’s vast amount of toxic lead pipes and create tens of thousands of jobs. To that end, the analysis urges state and local officials to expedite pipe replacement in areas with the highest lead exposures and use projects to build a more diverse local workforce. It’s also asking the Illinois General Assembly to help fill a multibillion-dollar budget gap for lead pipe replacement.
“The longer we put off water infrastructure, the more expensive water will be, the more water rates will be raised to deal with it, and the more people will be left without access to safe, clean drinking water,” said Justin Williams, senior manager at the Urban Planning Council, one of the policy think tanks that helped develop the plan. “And that’s not the situation we should be in as a state or region.”
several other regional and national nonprofits, including Current, a hub for water solutions; Elevate, an organization working on water and energy affordability issues; Workforce development group HIRE360 also worked on the analysis.
Illinois has the most lead pipes in the country. The state estimates there are 667,000 known primary service lines and an additional 820,000 suspect lines. Chicago alone accounts for almost 30% of these pipes.
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Replacing these service lines is expensive. The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency found in a 2022 report that replacing a single service line can cost between $4,000 and $13,000 statewide. In Chicago, prices are even higher, with city officials estimating that replacements cost an average of more than $30,000 per line.
State officials estimate that replacing all known and suspected lead pipes across Illinois could cost between $6 billion and $10 billion. The Biden administration’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act, set aside $15 billion over five years to help states replace lead pipes. Illinois is estimated to receive about $1 billion, but Williams said that number is “probably on the low side” given the state’s unique needs.
Nationally, the cost to replace all lead pipes is estimated at more than $55 billion, according to Emily Simonson, senior director of water leadership and innovation at the US Water Alliance. She added that Illinois alone accounts for 12 percent of that total, and the Great Lakes states account for nearly half.
The report argues that the state Legislature must approve dedicated, sustained, and predictable funding to close the multibillion-dollar shortfall. Without long-term warranties, replacements can remain inefficient and delayed.
“It’s a bit of a chicken-and-egg thing. We’re not going to add more people to the apprenticeship program until we know how much funding is going to be allocated to this and how many opportunities are going to come our way,” said Jay Lowell, executive director of HIRE360.
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Using workforce projections from the American Water Works Association and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the report’s authors calculated that the federal funds already allocated could create about 2,000 direct jobs and 9,000 indirect jobs. If Congress closes a multibillion-dollar funding gap, that number could rise significantly to 35,000 direct jobs and 55,000 indirect jobs over 10 years, for a total of 90,000 jobs.
“We are calling attention to this issue as well as the opportunity to bring more candidates into apprenticeships,” Rowell said. “This is a really big problem and requires very thoughtful, state-led solutions.”
A major pillar of the report is the diversification of construction transactions. An analysis of Chicago’s workforce found that only 3.8 percent of registered apprentices were women and only 10 percent were black. To close this gap, the report recommends requiring utilities and local governments to include diversity and equity requirements in project contracts.
The report’s authors argue that Illinois has a rare opportunity to simultaneously tackle the dual challenges of addressing a harmful legacy while laying the foundation for a more inclusive economy. While financial and political hurdles remain high, advocates say the cost of inaction is even higher.
“We are the envy of the world when it comes to access to fresh drinking water,” Williams said. “We need to manage it really thoughtfully, and that means investing in that infrastructure the same way we invest in other infrastructure.”
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Juan Pablo Ramirez-Franco is a Midwest region reporter for Grist and WBEZ Chicago.
