Elgin council approves funding for water filter pitchers for homes with lead service lines

As Elgin continues to address the replacement of roughly 13,000 lead service pipes, the city is taking steps to ensure residents in those homes have access to safe drinking water.

The Elgin City Council gave preliminary approval last week to a $500,000 contract with 120Water for filtered water pitcher distribution and water sampling.

A final vote will take place at an upcoming council meeting.

The programs are expected to be available to all single-family and small multifamily residential buildings constructed before 1988 with water lines that are 2 inches or smaller in diameter. Schools or child care facilities served by known or potential lead service lines will also have access to the programs.

120Water will take requests, communicate with residents and source and track the delivery of water sample kits and pitchers. It also will provide instruction and customer support. The company works with over 600 public water systems nationwide, including a dozen in Illinois.

The Brita pitchers will be certified for ANSI/NSF 42 class I particulate reduction and ANSI/NSF 53 for lead reduction as required by the Illinois and United States Environmental Protection Agencies. A replacement filter will be sent out four months later.

Water director Eric Weiss said people in homes with known lead service lines will be able to request the pitcher and filter without doing the water sample test.

The contract would cover about 1,300 each of the water sample test kits and filter pitcher requests. The city said they could approve more funding if demand exceeds that amount.

The city also approved additional funding for their corrosion control study, which is looking for ways to alter the city's source water chemistry to help build up scale on lead service lines. Lead is not present in Elgin's source water or in the city's treated drinking water, Weiss said.