A University of Delaware research project narrowed down the number of lead pipes in Wilmington needing replacement, potentially saving the city millions.
Even though lead piping was banned in 1986, many water systems - like Wilmington’s - still have some. Last year the Biden administration mandated that all lead pipes be replaced by 2037.
But with some 74,000 pipes in the city, finding ones that need replacement could be a daunting and expensive task. To help narrow down that number, a crew of UD students spent a year looking through tens of thousands of work orders dating back almost a century.
“These books that are in the 6th floor, the City-County building, are these big ledgers where the plumbers and the inspectors would intensively record on the day they went out there in 1936, say, there was a lead pipe and they replaced it with a galvanized pipe,” said Gerald Kauffman, director of the UD Water Resources Center. He says the students found that less than three percent of the city’s pipes - about 2,000 - are lead and need replacement. That saves the city a lot of work, and money.
“By my calculations, this joint effort between the city and the university saved the city about $15 million," Kauffman said.
The project was headed up by Water Resources Center associate director Martha Narvaez.
