City Bureau hosted reporters from WBEZ, Grist and Inside Climate News to share their findings on Chicago’s lead pipe problem and how neighbors can reduce their health risks
by Roger Fierro
Juanpablo Ramirez-Franco, right, and Keerti Gopal spoke during Public Newsroom 160 at City Bureau’s Bronzeville office Sept. 25, 2025, to share insights from their reporting on lead in Chicago drinking water. (Davon Clark/for City Bureau)
Despite a federal mandate to replace its lead pipes by 2047, Chicago expects to channel its drinking water through neurotoxic metal infrastructure for the next 50 years.
“That would be 30 extra years of contaminated drinking water,” said Keerti Gopal, a reporter for Inside Climate news. “That's a really big difference. That's a generation.”
Gopal and Juanpablo Ramirez-Franco of WBEZ Chicago and Grist spoke at City Bureau’s Public Newsroom 160 on Sept. 25 to share their ongoing reporting on how the city is slow to replace its lead pipes — as well as to warn residents about the dangers of them. Their coverage also includes an interactive map to show which homes have lead service lines, which neighborhoods have the highest risk of lead contamination in their drinking water, and what resources are available to those who do.
Read more: Lead Pipes are Everywhere in Chicago. Here’s How to Protect Yourself. | City Bureau
Chicago has an estimated 412,000 lead service lines that need to be replaced — the most of any city in the United States. The next-highest city, Cleveland, has about 185,400.
“This is a public health problem,” Gopal said. “If you've got lead plumbing, that means that lead can leach into your water. It can flake off from the pipes, it can dissolve into the water, and then that can cause really serious health harms.”
There is no safe level of lead exposure, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. It can cause slowed growth, behavioral and learning problems, hearing problems and anemia in children; risk of miscarriage or harm to a developing baby’s brain and nervous system; and cardiovascular effects, reproductive problems and decreased kidney function in adults.
Keerti Gopal and Juanpablo Ramirez-Franco share QR codes that link to their reporting on lead in Chicago water and a searchable map where residents can look to see if their home has lead service pipes. The reporters spoke during City Bureau’s Public Newsroom 160 on Sept. 25, 2025 in the Bronzeville neighborhood of Chicago. (Davon Clark/for City Bureau)
Prior to the 1980s, lead pipes were widely used in plumbing because they are malleable and easy to work with. Chicago mandated lead water pipes for new connections until 1986, when Congress banned them nationwide.
“The thing about Chicago is that we have some of the best water anywhere in the world, because we pull all of our water from Lake Michigan every day,” Ramirez-Franco said. But, he added, that clean water can easily be contaminated as it travels through the pipes that lead to people’s homes, workplaces, day cares, schools and parks.
When it comes to replacing the lead pipes, the city will only cover the public side of service lines, Ramirez-Franco said. Internal plumbing can also have lead, and the cost to replace those pipes can reach tens of thousands of dollars.
Here are more takeaways from the event.
Chicago’s plan to get rid of lead pipes
Only 66 lead service lines were removed in Chicago in 2021. By the end of 2025, the city plans to remove 8,000 — a mere 2% of the total that need to be swapped out.
An October 2024 federal mandate required cities to remove lead pipes by 2037. Cities with a lot of lead pipes, including Chicago, received exemptions, giving officials 20 years from 2027 to comply. However, Chicago is planning on taking 50 years, based on a state law that grants them the extra time. The federal mandate would require replacing 20,000 pipes per year.
City slow to notify residents
There has also been a delay in notifying residents of potential for lead in their pipes. Officials were supposed to send around 900,000 letters by November 2024 telling residents their water could be contaminated; only 7% were sent as of July.
Chicago is only sending 3,000 notifications per week and has reached 22% of residents so far, which includes notifications sent as utility bill inserts. In comparison, Milwaukee sent 130,000 notices in a single day.
Read more from Chicago Documenters: Alders Rebuke Water Department Official as Millions to Replace Lead Pipes is Unused | City Bureau
Where are Chicago’s lead pipes?
As part of Gopal and Ramirez-Franco’s reporting, the news organizations analyzed city data obtained through a public records request to publicly map how the problem of lead pipes affects different parts of the city — and its intersection with race and poverty.
Nine of the 10 community areas with the highest percentage of pipes requiring replacement are on the South Side. The tenth is Belmont Cragin, a majority-Latino neighborhood on the Northwest Side.
Read more: Lead pipe problem the worst in Chicago's majority Black and Latino neighborhoods | Sun-Times
Citywide, 92% of majority-Latino Census tracts need pipes replaced. In mostly Black communities, it’s 89%. Among majority white and Asian communities, the figures are 74% and 65%, respectively.
“It's really a whole city problem,” Gopal said. “And that's something we want to emphasize — even the areas that have less lead service lines often can still have more than 50% lead service lines. So it's really something that's impacting all of Chicago.”
Public Newsroom attendees discuss findings from WBEZ, Inside Climate News and Grist concerning lead in Chicago drinking water. (Davon Clark/for City Bureau)
What do I do if I have lead pipes?
The interactive map tool will show whether your residence is likely to have lead pipes and how prevalent the issue is in your neighborhood.
Residents can request a free water test kit from the city, and those who test positive for lead might qualify for a free water filter. Those who buy their own filter should ensure they are NSF rated as removing lead, as some do not.
The mapping tool also includes information about the income-based equity program for pipe replacement. Costs to replace a private service line can range from $15,000-$40,000 per line. The average cost in Chicago is about $35,000.
Roger Fierro is a Chicago-based reporter and was a Civic Reporting Fellow at City Bureau in 2024. He was born and raised on Chicago’s Southwest Side and has worked as a researcher, data analyst and bilingual reading teacher.
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