Illinois American Water to inventory and replace lead service lines; company says replacements at its cost

Illinois American Water outlined its plan to identify and replace lead service lines in the Peoria service area at a Peoria City Council meeting Tuesday.

The utility’s senior operations manager for the western division, Matt White, said the lead found in recent tests is not coming from the city’s treatment plants but from service lines and interior plumbing. “The lead that you're finding in that we're finding in the sampling is directly related to the service lines or the interior plumbing of those homes,” White said.

White said the utility owns service lines from the water main to the property line and customers own the portion inside the property line, but the company is treating the entire run as the inventory and replacement target under the new federal requirements. The company has built a web-based service-line inventory map to let customers check their property and report unknown materials; customers can upload photos to help the utility identify materials.

White said Illinois American Water has replaced roughly 2,700 lead services in Peoria to date and is on track in 2025 to replace 850 or more identified lead services. He told councilmembers the company prioritizes replacements for sites with confirmed lead exceedances, leaking service lines and older homes. “If we identify that there's an exceedance of lead in that water supply, that's gonna be our top priority,” White said.

White also described the utility’s customer-facing steps after a lead exceedance. He said the EPA defines an exceedance at 15 parts per billion and that when sampling shows exceedances the utility works directly with affected customers, provides a pitcher filter and expedites the service-line replacement and retesting. “Once we identified that there are exceedances, and the exceedance by the EPA is identified by 15 parts per billion of lead or more,” White said, “Anywhere that we do sampling and we find that there's an exceedance of lead, we're working with those customers directly to expedite those replacements. We immediately provide them with a pitcher filter….”

White also said the company will pay to replace the service line from the main all the way into the home where it is identified as lead or galvanized: “It's at our cost to replace those service lines.” He asked customers who cannot use the online tool to call the company’s customer service number to have staff look up the address.

Councilmembers asked about prioritization, the share of Peoria’s system affected, how residents are notified and whether mains contain lead. White said mains are not the primary source of concern and that the company’s focus is on service lines. He also described an updated low-income assistance program the company expanded to customers up to 300 percent of the federal poverty level and said the company partners with Dollar Energy to administer that discount.

Mayor Rita Ali and multiple councilmembers thanked White and said they want continued outreach and better coordination with neighborhood groups. The council voted unanimously to receive and file the presentation.