Receipt

More than sixty-five thousand lead service lines still carry Milwaukee's drinking water today. Federal law says every single one must be gone by 2037.

• F1 ← “More than sixty-five thousand lead service lines still carry Milwaukee's drinking water today” ⇢ More than 65,000 lead service lines remain in Milwaukee
• F1 ← “Federal law says every single one must be gone by 2037” ⇢ a federal rule requires all of them to be replaced by 2037

More than sixty-five thousand lead lines still remain across Milwaukee homes today. A federal rule forces the city to replace every single one by 2037.

• F1 ← “More than sixty-five thousand lead lines still remain across Milwaukee homes today” ⇢ More than 65,000 lead service lines remain in Milwaukee
• F1 ← “A federal rule forces the city to replace every single one by 2037” ⇢ a federal rule requires all of them to be replaced by 2037

In 2025, crews replaced roughly three thousand three hundred lines. Since the program started, more than ten thousand have come out of the ground.

• F2 ← “In 2025, crews replaced roughly three thousand three hundred lines” ⇢ Milwaukee replaced roughly 3,300 lead service lines in 2025
• F5 ← “Since the program started, more than ten thousand have come out of the ground” ⇢ Milwaukee has replaced more than 10,000 lead service lines since the program began

Each replacement runs about ten thousand dollars. In 2026 alone, Milwaukee received over fifty million dollars just to keep pace with the work.

• F3 ← “Each replacement runs about ten thousand dollars” ⇢ Replacing a single lead service line costs an average of $10,000
• F4 ← “In 2026 alone, Milwaukee received over fifty million dollars just to keep pace with the work” ⇢ Milwaukee received more than $50 million to fund lead service line replacements in 2026

Next year the city plans five thousand replacements, a fifty percent jump from 2025. Homeowners in the program pay nothing, though skipping it costs four thousand dollars.

• F2 ← “Next year the city plans five thousand replacements, a fifty percent jump from 2025” ⇢ plans to replace 5,000 in 2026, an increase of about 50 percent
• F6 ← “Homeowners in the program pay nothing, though skipping it costs four thousand dollars” ⇢ there has been no cost to owners of one-to-four-unit residential properties included in the replacement program, while an owner who requests a replacement outside it pays $4,000

Milwaukee is racing a deadline buried in its own streets. Every dug-up yard is a countdown. The pipes underground are still being counted.