#176: Funding To Fight Lead: How Denver Did It

waterloop: exploring solutions

This episode is part of a series, Funding To Fight Lead. There are perhaps 10 million lead service lines in the ground in the U.S. and it may cost $50 billion to remove them. The series explores financing lead service line replacement, technical assistance for under-resourced communities, and examples of successful approaches.

This episode is about how Denver did it.

When Denver Water decided to replace 64,000 to 84,000 lead service lines over 15 years, the question arose of how to pay for the work. The utility ultimately decided to use public funds for the work on private property.

The decision came after much research into the financial approach and clarification that it was permissible from the Government Accounting Standards Board, as discussed in this episode with Angela Bricmont, Chief Financial Officer of Denver Water, and Ed Harrington, former President of the Government Finance Officers Association.

Angela and Ed also talk about building comfort with this method of funding lead service line replacement and the significant interest in the approach from other water utilities.

waterloop is a nonprofit media outlet. Visit waterloop.org

This episode is made possible by support from the WaterNow Alliance and Environmental Policy Innovation Center and is sponsored by:

120Water offers cloud-based software and digital sampling kits to help water systems and states to execute lead programs. Visit 120water.com

LeadCopperRule.com helps utilities proactively manage lead communications and public information emergencies. Visit leadcopperrule.com

BlueConduit has developed cutting-edge, predictive machine learning software to effectively locate lead service lines. Visit blueconduit.com