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 plan for replacement; a 2022 rule change discussed at the meeting requires utilities to replace lead service lines within a 10‑year period beginning in 2027.

Inventory and cost details presented at the meeting: - Inventory size: the department reported just over 10,000 service lines in the system and 972 physical excavations/inspections completed to confirm materials. - Lead/galvanized totals: 365 lines identified as lead or galvanized in need of replacement; of those, 123 are on the utility (city) side and 219 are on the private side. - Cost estimates: city staff estimated a city‑performed replacement per line (materials and city labor/equipment, including use of a line‑pulling machine owned by the city) at roughly $750 to $1,500 per line. Private contractor estimates using open trench or boring methods were presented as materially higher (roughly $5,000 to $6,000 per line) based on local contractor practices. - Total estimate: if the city performed both public and private replacements, staff estimated the total program cost in the range of about $256,000 to $500,000 (staff noted earlier budget allocations of $100,000 per year in the capital plan but said those figures predated the completed inventory).

Kim said replacing both the public and private portions of a service line at the same time is recommended to avoid water‑quality spikes caused by disturbing only one side of the connection, and he emphasized the equity argument for covering private lines in addition to city‑owned lines.

Kim and staff noted grant limitations: a state drinking‑water program can provide principal forgiveness but, as presented, the grant eligibility would cover only a subset of the private galvanized lines (staff estimated roughly 39% of the private replacements would qualify under current grant rules because the grant links eligibility to specific upstream conditions).

Council members asked whether the city had surveyed local contractors about capacity and equipment. Council member Dennis asked, “Did you discuss with contractors this whole proposal and ask them questions about how they could do this or did you just assume…?” Kim replied that the department’s assessment relied on recent contractor work and prior projects but that staff had not completed a formal market survey of every local contractor’s equipment (for example, the specific line‑pulling machine the city owns).

Direction and next steps: several council members said they supported using the Water Enterprise Fund and asked staff to prepare ordinance language to permit enterprise funds to be used for private infrastructure replacement in this specific, time‑limited circumstance and to return with a scope and implementation plan. “Once that's the direction, then we can work on revisions to ordinance language to bring back to you for approval,” a staff member said. Staff also committed to provide a more detailed cost comparison and additional information about contractor capacity if council requests it.

No formal ordinance or funding vote was taken at the meeting; staff left with direction to return with draft ordinance language, a refined budgetary plan and details on contractor market capacity.