Eric Sandy
As of now, at the end of 2024, the city lists only 1,700 lead services, down from a peak of 50,000. Soon, Akron will be lead-free.
That effort places Akron at the vanguard of American cities’ sprawling efforts to redress lead pipes in drinking water infrastructure. No other major city, save Newark, N.J., comes close in terms of the timeline to complete that goal.
“By this time next year, we are very, very confident that there will not be a lead service in service in the city of Akron, which is extremely exciting for us because this was an initiative that went on many generations ago,” says Jeff Bronowski, water bureau manager for the city. “Akron stopped using them right after 1945, but we started replacing them right around 1960. That's when we decided: Let's start replacing these. And we did about 1,000 a year for many, many years up until most recently, where we're doing a little over 1,000 a year.”
In the 1960s, Public Utilities Bureau Manager David Crandell led his department in removing lead pipes–well before there were any regulations requiring the work. That foresight has brought Akron to the present day, to the 1-yard line in its efforts to rid the city of lead services.
Down below street level on Greenwood Avenue, the crew is shoveling clay and unearthing the water main and its copper connections to nearby homes. The team will remove the lead line and then install a new copper line via corporation stop.
Nick Marshall, civil engineer and project manager for Akron’s water bureau, stands above the work and points out the finer technical processes at play–the removal, the installation, all seamless. "We have excellent records with our GIS system, so we pretty much know what we’re getting into before we start digging,” he says.
By mid-afternoon, this hole will be patched up and the crew will be onto the next one. Repeat this process about a million times in America, and, ultimately we’ll arrive at the U.S. EPA deadline to remove all lead services lines by 2037. For Mayes & Sons this year alone, their crews have replaced about 3,000 service lines in Cleveland, Akron, and Newark, Ohio.
Lead line replacement is one of the primary public works projects of the moment, a chance to unite the country in fixing a wrong levied by the past.
Large cities like Cleveland (235,442 lead services) and Chicago (387,095) and New York (111,616) have their work cut out for them.
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Briefly, the history of lead and our drinking water infrastructure goes like this: Lead was widely used for service lines, and then we stopped. As a society, brought lead back in briefly during World War II, amidst copper shortages, and then we stopped for good.
Ever since, municipal public works departments have been slowly identifying every lead line and replacing them, one by one, whenever funding was available.
The dangers of lead are as stark as they are well-documented. The metal is toxic at any level of exposure, with children facing the highest risks: irreversible brain and nervous system damage, developmental delays, and learning disabilities. Adults aren’t spared either, with increased risks of cardiovascular disease, kidney damage, and reproductive harm. The CDC and EPA agree: Eliminating lead pipes is among the most effective ways to protect public health.
Lately, this has become a priority from the U.S. EPA on down to the local level.
The latest Lead and Copper Rule Improvements (LCRI), released in October 2024, build on a set of policies set in motion in the early 1990s. Under the Biden administration, the U.S. EPA has set a 10-year window–from 2027 to 2037–to identify and remove lead service lines. This a massive undertaking, one that connects largely unseen and aging infrastructure to the day-to-day lives of American taxpayers. It’s a public communications opportunity.
A large part of the LCRI is written to assist “communication within communities so that families are better informed about the risk of lead in drinking water, the location of lead pipes, and plans for replacing them.”
Beyond simple communications, the LCRI is a vehicle for encouraging investment in this pressing matter. That funding is flowing now.
In Akron, Bronowski says the city is taking advantage of a revolving state loan fund that provides 53% principal forgiveness when it’s used to fund this work. The city has also reaped dollars through the state’s H2Ohio grant program and the federal American Rescue Plan program. “We've been aggressively, aggressively, aggressively going after every funding opportunity we can,” Bronowski says.
President Biden even cited Akron's work as exemplary during a federal announcement, acknowledging the city's proactive stance and its use of public funding to accelerate progress.
“This is something that most cities our size and age are nowhere close to accomplishing,” Akron Mayor Shammas Malik said at the time. “Due to Akron’s proactive approach of removing lead lines long before it was considered best practice to do so, we are nearly finished with this important work. We thank the Biden administration for recognizing our efforts.”
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Back on scene, on Greenwood Avenue, the Mayes & Sons crew is wrapping up work on the copper install. There are another three addresses on this street set for completion in short order, and dozens more in the surrounding West Akron neighborhood as December rolls on.
If one were to look at Greenwood Avenue from above, on a map on Bronowski’s computer, the lead lines would light up in red on a GIS representation of the city. This is a critical tool in the effort that’s gone into replacing lead–and one of the principal lessons he’s learned in overseeing this work.
Unlike many other communities that rely on approximations to identify lead service lines, Akron has detailed address-specific records dating back decades. These records, similar to a library card system and now digitized in GIS software, document when lines were replaced, the materials used, and other vital details.
This meticulous record-keeping allows Akron to confidently pinpoint lead service locations, minimizing unnecessary excavation and reducing costs and disruption. The approach has also helped Akron coordinate effectively with resurfacing projects, avoiding unnecessary damage to newly improved streets (another major lesson he’s gleaned in his role). If a great resurfacing project is slated for the spring, why not take a look at the map and see if there are any lead service or water main replacement opportunities?
Coordination is key, and that’s extremely difficult without good records and good communication.
Eric Sandy
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That’s largely what the LCRI is meant to facilitate: a graceful transition from water infrastructure laid out in the early 20th century to more modern and safe equipment.
On Greenwood Avenue, Marshall, the city engineer, says the local water infrastructure–the main running beneath his feet–was placed by men in suits whose horse-drawn buggies carted cast iron up and down the street. Times have changed.
Marshall points to the lead pipe yanked out of the ground by the crew. It’s no more than an inch in diameter, a quaint relic from a bygone era–but it’s riddled with public health baggage and decades of new scientific understanding about how the world works. The LCRI is a sprawling document, one built on years of thoughtful refinement, and it’s now manifesting as municipal contracts on quiet streets just like Greenwood Avenue, all over the U.S.
This singular lead pipe is just a fraction of the problem.
“This thing’s probably been in the ground for 100 years,” he says. “It still works, but the lead has to go.”
