The City of Big Rapids is taking the lead in getting rid of lead piping in the water service lines.

 

Back in the 1950's a small piece of lead pipe, known as a “gooseneck” was used on service lines for water service lines in houses built before the 1950s, and Big Rapids has many homes from that era.

 

(Courtesey Photo)

 

The below image is the typical location of the lead gooseneck and how it may connect to a service line.

 

 

City Staff identified locations where water mains were installed before 1950 and are in use along with lead goosenecks had been removed from the water mains during construction projects.

 

Currently, there are 528 locations listed as “unknown”in Big Rapids and have been reported to the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy.

 

In accordance with the state's lead service line replacement mandate, the City of Big Rapids is required to replace at least 5% lines per year over the next 20 years. City Manager Mark Gifford said they want to accelerate that timeline.

 

“Back in 2019, when this mandate was first implemented were only doing a few at a time each year and that is not an efficient way to do this.” Gifford said. “So this would be investigating those locations and then we will get a real number as to how much lead we have and how we can budget to remove it.”

 

Big Rapids City Commissioners to awarded a bid of $303,600 to Underground Infrastructure Services to identify remaining lead pipes or lines within the city.