December 22, 2009

CITY OF TORONTO

Toronto is looking to redo 7,000 connections at a total cost of $37 million.

Toronto lead pipe replacement program gets ‘stimulated’

SAUL CHERNOS

correspondent

With federal government economic stimulus money on the way for local infrastructure projects, Toronto Water is escalating its efforts to replace the lead pipes that connect the city’s older homes to municipal watermains.

It’s common knowledge that lead poses significant health problems. But the relatively soft metal used to be a plumbing staple until the mid-1950s, when Ontario’s plumbing code banned lead services.

The problem lingers, however. Connections to single-family dwellings built before the 1950s have largely remained in place. Toronto has water service connections to almost a half million houses, and the City estimates 65,000 are made from lead.

To remedy this, city politicians approved the Lead Water Service Replacement Program in 2007. Close to 14,000 replacements have been completed so far, at a cost projected to reach $73 million by year’s end.

With $10 million in stimulus funding directed towards the Lead Water Service Replacement Program for 2010 activity, the city is looking to redo 7,000 connections at a total cost of $37 million, which includes the grant money.

Michael D’Andrea, the city’s director of water infrastructure management, said the cost includes replacing an additional 5,000 galvanized and half-inch copper connections, in keeping with ongoing infrastructure renewal activities.

“These are all seen as substandard,” D’Andrea explained. “We replace aging infrastructure as part of our standard program.”

The city is only replacing the municipally-owned side of the water service connections — the portion of pipe running from the watermain to the property line. Homeowners are responsible for replacing the private portion of pipe running from the property line to the water meter.

Residents who wish to complete this work will be able to hire the City’s contractor or use their own contractor. The city estimates the cost for changing out the homeowner’s portion of pipe at $1,800 to $3,000 per dwelling.

The replacement program only addresses individual service connections. Toronto’s four water treatment plants and transmission system, including pumps, reservoirs and large-diameter watermains, are built from lead-free materials.

Some small residential watermains may have mechanical joints with minor amounts of lead, but the city considers these minor in nature and will replace them over time through its watermain infrastructure renewal program. Sampling at plants and throughout the distribution system shows no detectable lead present in Toronto’s drinking water, D’Andrea said.

The federal grant will boost the amount of work the city can do in 2010, and help redirect scarce tax dollars towards other, equally vital projects, D’Andrea said.

“We’ll be able to undertake more service replacements over the 2010 period than we would otherwise be able to do.”

D’Andrea said much of the work will be scheduled to coincide with other underground infrastructure projects in order to reduce overall costs.

Joe Accardi, executive director of the Greater Toronto Sewer and Watermain Contractors Association, said the city’s decision to propose this particular project in its bid for stimulus funding shows that the municipality is proactive in terms of wanting to maintain and renew its infrastructure yet has lacked the funds to systematically do these necessary projects.

“The problem is they just don’t have 100 per cent of the funding available to get this going,” Accardi said. “This is what the stimulus package is intended to do, to allow municipalities to work on projects that are outside the realm of what their typical funding allows.”

Accardi said job numbers are hard to determine. However, between city staff and private contractors, he estimates that a couple of hundred people are likely working on related projects.

“We have about 80 contractors in the Toronto area who do sewer and watermain who are members of our association, and many of them have 30 to 40 people on staff.”

The replacement program is slated to continue through to 2016. The City has budgeted $191 million for work planned from 2011 through 2016.

Overall, Ottawa is contributing $200 million in infrastructure funding to the City for assorted projects, including an upgrade to the city’s trunk watermain infrastructure and emergency repairs to the Coxwell sanitary trunk sewer.

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