Hawthorne will spend at least $15 million to replace water pipes

HAWTHORNE — Officials have to replace an estimated 23 miles of underground pipes because of a law aimed at ridding the state's water systems of lead service lines.

And they are less than thrilled about it.

"I'm extremely disappointed," Mayor John Lane said this week. "The state continues to pass laws and pass mandates that are funded by local municipalities."

The most conservative cost estimate to complete the immense project is $15 million — a figure that does not take into account the price to tear up and repave local streets.

The law, signed by Gov. Phil Murphy in July, was the first of its kind in the U.S. to put a deadline on eradicating the hazardous metal from water supplies. It requires utilities to inventory their lead pipes and to replace them within the next decade.

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But the service lines in Hawthorne are not lead, officials said — they are made out of galvanized steel and coated with zinc.

The fine print of the legislation orders that type of piping to also be replaced.

The Borough Council passed a $2.5 million bond issue for the initial cost of the project, and officials will seek bidders for the first batch of pipe replacements in the spring.

Borough Administrator Eric Maurer said officials will dovetail the project with the annual road program to limit the cost of repaving as much as possible.

The borough has almost 5,600 service lines, Maurer said, and 46% are galvanized. The rest were already replaced with copper pipes. A service line, as defined by the law, runs laterally — from the main to the curb, and from the curb to the residence.

The galvanized pipes that still exist in the borough are 70-plus years old, Maurer said.

According to the state Department of Health, at least 20% of human exposure to lead is from drinking water. Symptoms of lead poisoning may include abdominal pain and brain damage.

People who live in houses built after February 1987 may be less exposed to the metal, because that is when lead-based solder was banned in indoor plumbing in New Jersey.

But regular analyses of water drawn from local customers' taps prove that it is safe to drink, Maurer said.

"Thirty years of required testing in homes," Maurer said, and it "has revealed no lead problem with Hawthorne water."

Philip DeVencentis is a local reporter for NorthJersey.com. For unlimited access to the most important news from your local community, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

Email: devencentis@northjersey.com

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Hawthorne will spend at least $15M to replace water pipeline