CONLEY COMMENTARY (WSAU) – It’s amazing how a bad idea refuses to die.
Wausau’s City Council delayed any action on a lead pipe removal ordinance in July. Now the idea is back again. It will be discussed at a Committee of the Whole meeting on August 18th.
If you own an older home, as far back as the 1950s, you likely have lead pipes that connect your house to the water main underneath your street and to the sewer lines that carry waste water away from your home.
Removing the pipes is ridiculously expensive – about $10,000 per property.
Wausau’s former mayor Katie Rosenberg was infatuated with this issue, so much so that she attended a White House junket in Washington. There she was told not to worry about the costs, that federal aid would be available to cities that were early adopters on the issue. Mayor Rosenberg even told us that lead pipe replacement would be done free-of-charge to homeowners. We found out later that it was a political scam. The company that coordinated the pipe removal was made up as big Democrat political donors. When they got contracts to renovate military housing and college dormitories they made the proper donations and the actual work was substandard.
City leaders who continue to push the lead pipe issue are tone-deaf to financial realities for people who live in Wausau. If you own your own home, you’re already facing a large revaluation-fueled property tax increase. Even if Wausau does what it can through zero-based budgeting, the school board is teeing up a huge increase to cover a $3-million deficit. Anyone who thinks now is the time to force a $10,000 expense on some homeowners isn’t living in reality. If you rent a lead-pipe home, surely your landlord will pass those expenses onto you.
Now I don’t want anyone to suffer the health effects of lead. But filtration options are much less expensive. $10,000 buys a lot of bottled water. Removing lead sewer lines is unnecessary; no one drinks sewer water.
And Wausau city leaders should have a moment of pause. Stevens Point, Marshfield, and Wisconsin Rapids also have old houses with lead pipes. Why are their leaders holding off on forcing these new costs onto their residents?
Sometimes ‘wait and see’ is the right answer.
Chris Conley
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