Grand Junction staff outline options to replace private lead or galvanized water service lines; utilities director recommends enterprise funding

Grand Junction’s utilities department told the council it has completed an inventory of the city’s water service lines and identified 365 service lines that are lead or galvanized and therefore require replacement under the revised federal Lead and Copper Rule; 219 of those are on the private side of the meter.

“Of those 972 [physical investigations], we were able to determine there are 365 in total that are either lead or what's considered galvanized requiring replacement,” Utilities Director Randy Kim said, reporting the department’s inventory and physical inspections.

City staff described four funding options for replacing private service lines: (1) status quo (property owners pay), (2) a customer payback plan, (3) pursue state grant funding that can provide partial principal forgiveness, and (4) use the city’s Water Enterprise Fund and perform the work using city crews. Kim said the EPA’s 1991 Lead and Copper Rule and subsequent revisions (notably the 2021 revisions and later implementation steps) require utilities to inventory lines and…