The goal is to allow water companies to more easily meet a proposed federal rule requiring lead service lines to be replaced within a decade. That rule would be beneficial for Hoosiers’ health, but many in the industry argue the costly ask is just not attainable, even with the added help from the General Assembly. 

The bill already unanimously passed the Senate and is advancing through the House. 

Where lead service lines are located

Typically, those lead service lines are in older neighborhoods where more people of color and lower-income Hoosiers live at higher rates. In 2016, the Indiana Department of Environmental Management surveyed the state’s utilities to see how widespread the problem was. 

Hayden and Patriot, smaller communities in southern Indiana, estimated all of their service lines contained lead. In East Chicago, a city with a population that’s majority Hispanic or Black, 4 out of 5 of the service lines likely contained lead. (The rest were unknown.) And in South Bend where Rivera Baez lives, more than half the service lines likely contained lead. Some of those pipes may have been replaced since 2016.

It’s possible to guess which homes have lead service lines. The Environmental Protection Agency banned the installation of lead pipes in 1986, meaning older homes could still have lead service lines. 

Still, it’s tedious guesswork. 

“It’s a big undertaking,” said Gabriel Filippelli, director of the Center for Urban Health at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. “They have to tear up streets to get to the lines, and if they guessed wrong, they’ve torn up a street that doesn’t actually have lead service lines, which is a bummer.”

Utility companies stopped using lead service lines in the Indianapolis area before 1950, but some 20,000 lead service lines are still in use. That affects places like the Martindale Brightwood area on the near northeast side of Indianapolis, a community where leaders say residents have consistently felt overlooked when it comes to infrastructure investments. It’s slated to get its lead service lines replaced in the near future. 

The majority of the population of the three Census tracts that Citizens Energy Group is targeting in the Martindale-Brightwood area is Black, with a higher poverty rate than the rest of Indianapolis. 

“To me this is a justice issue,” said Sen. Andra Hunley, a Democrat who represents a portion of the Martindale-Brightwood neighborhood. “We know that this is a health risk now, so we should have our foot on the gas and work to change as many lines as possible as early as possible.”

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, lead can be harmful even at low levels. It can cause learning disabilities that affect reading comprehension in children or cause them to act out more in school, both concerns as Indiana seeks to boost third grade reading scores. 

“There really are no therapeutic interventions that currently exist to help combat lead levels that are already in the blood, and so that’s why prevention is really what is so paramount,” Dr. Jeremy Mescher, a pediatrician at Southern Indiana Physicians Riley Physicians Pediatrics, shared during testimony. 

According to a study from the Natural Resources Defense Council, Indiana could save $24.8 billion worth of health care costs over the next 35 years by removing every lead pipe. 

Lisa Welch, a spokeswoman for the Indiana Health Department, said the primary source of lead exposure is usually dust, paint or soil, but lead in water can be a much larger concern for babies who rely on formula using tap water. 

Plus, oftentimes the same low-income households that face those other environmental hazards also have lead pipes, according to Denise Abdul-Rahman, chair of the Indiana State Conference of the NAACP Environmental Climate Justice program. That can compound the problem. 

“Everyone should have the right to clean water,” Abdul-Rahman said. “But then you have basically multiple impacts in lower-income households, like lead-chipped paint, the soil contaminants, living in a brownfield area, so multiple health impacts.”

Wealthier Hoosiers living in older homes are also more likely to have the resources to remove the lead pipes without waiting for the utility companies to focus on their neighborhood, while those on fixed or smaller budgets do not. 

What Senate Bill 5 will do

One of the problems utilities face as they try to replace lead service lines is unresponsive, sometimes out-of-state landlords. Because part of lead service lines are technically owned by property owners and on their property, utilities need their permission to replace that part of the pipe.

When a landlord doesn’t respond, utilities can’t do the work, extending the process to replace pipes and adding unnecessary costs to an already pricey endeavor. Plus, renters who would gladly let a utility operator on the property are stuck dealing with the consequences of lead pipes at no fault of their own. 

Some of these same parts of the state that have old houses with lead pipes are rental-heavy. In the portions of the Martindale-Brightwood area that Citizens is targeting, for example, more than 60% are renters. That’s higher than the rate in the rest of Marion County. 

“When a utility approaches a neighborhood for a lead service line replacement program, it is imperative that we get access to as many homes as possible to avoid remobilization,” Bridget O’Connor, senior manager of government and external affairs at Citizens Energy Group, said during a committee hearing. “Remobilization to an area to address homes that the utility was not able to access originally will add unnecessary costs to and delay overall program implementation.” 

Senate Bill 5 would enable utility companies to replace lead service lines when property owners of homes and duplexes are unresponsive, as long as the replacement plan has been approved by the state regulatory body, the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission. 

Meanwhile, if the owner of an apartment complex doesn’t respond, the cost to replace the lead service lines falls on them. 

The bill would also allow a utility to disconnect water service if it is prevented from accessing properties, a measure that concerned some members of the House utilities committee despite broad bipartisan support overall. 

Rep. Matt Pierce, D-Bloomington, said he understood that cutting off someone’s water might indirectly encourage a landlord to give a utility company access to the property, but his concern was for renters. 

“Eventually you would get some leverage,” Pierce said, “but you’ve got some pain inflicted on innocent third parties in that process.”

Is SB 5 enough? 

Bill author Sen. Eric Koch, R-Bedford, said he thinks Indiana should aim to replace its lead service lines more quickly than the 10-year window the proposed federal rule would require. But even finishing the job in 10 years is a lofty goal. 

So far, only three utility companies in Indiana have had their plans approved by the commission. But those three provide a window into how challenging replacing all lead service pipes in Indiana will be, especially in a state that is sometimes reluctant to shell out additional funding. 

In 2018, Indiana American Water estimated it serviced about 50,000 lead service lines across the state. The company replaced or retired half of those over the course of five years. On average, replacing an entire service line cost the company about $8,100. Retiring a line or replacing only half was cheaper. 

If every Indiana utility company replaced all estimated service lines at that price over the next 10 years before inflation, it would cost more than $2 billion — well over the $65 million the federal government will give Indiana this year to provide reduced or zero-interest loans to replace these lead service lines. 

“When you’re dealing with something where you don’t actually know the extent of the problem with certainty,” the Center for Urban Health’s Filippelli said, “you don’t know how much it’s going to cost to clean it up necessarily.”

Likewise, the proposal approved in 2022 for Citizens Energy Group, which provides water only for the Indianapolis area, was initially intended to be a 33-year plan to replace the company’s estimated 55,000-75,000 lead service lines to limit rate increases for water users. O’Connor said the estimated cost to replace all of Citizens’ lines is $500 million. 

Brian Rockensuess, commissioner of the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, is skeptical that 10 years is enough time, amid concerns that replacement parts will skyrocket as demand goes up. 

“The idea of replacing these lines is a good idea. The problem is the timeframe,” Rockensuess said. “It is such a short time, and the amount of service lines that we have, plus the amount of money this is going to cost, is going to be something that I don’t think any utility in the country is going to be able to afford to do.”

And if utilities can’t afford it, water users will face rate increases. 

The proposed federal rule isn’t final yet and could still change.

What to do if you suspect you have lead service lines

Usually, you can contact your water utility company and request a test to see if your pipes contain lead. 

If the pipes are made of lead, Filippelli said a simple water filter, such as a Brita, will suffice if you plan to drink or cook with the water. Lead can’t be boiled out. Bathing in the water is still fine. 

“Lead, for how dangerous it is, is actually pretty easy to deal with once you know where it is,” Filippelli said. “It’s only dangerous because we don’t know.”

In some areas, like in Indianapolis, a property owner not in a prioritized area for replacement can request that a utility replace the lead service lines, but the property owner would have to pay to replace the cost of the service line on their own property. 

What’s next

Senate Bill 5 is scheduled for a hearing in House Ways and Means today. If it passes that committee, it could be up for a vote as early as next week. 

Update: The legislation for this plan, Senate Bill 5, won approval from the General Assembly, and Gov. Eric Holcomb signed it into law March 11.

Contact Kaitlin Lange on X @kaitlin_lange or email her at [email protected]. 

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