Malden City Engineer updates City Council on progress of ongoing lead pipe replacement in city

Engineer Yem Lip tells Councillors of positive progress in ambitious 10-year, $35 million goal of replacing all lead lines

By Steve Freker

The turnaround has been dramatic and the progress toward what had once been viewed as a potentially insurmountable goal now appears to have a realistic finish line.

In the course of Malden Mayor Gary Christenson’s soon-to-be record tenure as the city’s chief operating officer, Malden has had its fair share of “firsts” in both the region and the state. Around 2016, it was revealed the city was #1 in an unwanted category: most lead water pipe service lines in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Some 47% of Malden’s water lines were estimated by the Mass. Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) as containing lead pipes.

At a recent Malden City Council meeting, City Engineer Yem Lip presented a detailed update of the city’s progress toward an established goal of replacing and eliminating all lead pipes in the community.

Dramatic turnaround in lead pipe replacement

What Lip presented was information that described a dramatic turnaround in the past seven years where Malden has replaced hundreds of lead service lines – just over 300 (301), its biggest one-year total ever, in 2024 alone – with the combination of local, state and federal resources and programs. Lip appeared at the December 10 City Council meeting accompanied by the Mayor’s Chief of Staff, Maria Luise, to present an update and answer questions from the Council.

A scourge the city certainly had not invited, but simply a result of long-held past practice – locally, regionally and even nationally – was the use of lead pipes to carry water from the main reservoir to individual homes and businesses. According to the nonprofit National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), between 1900 and 1950, a majority of America’s largest cities installed lead water pipes. Some cities even mandated them, often in response to an industry campaign to enact rules requiring lead pipes. And because these pipes can last 75 to 100 years or more, the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that some nine million lead pipe lines still exist in communities nationwide.

Health experts consider lead pipes dangerous

Lead pipes are considered dangerous by health experts because lead is a toxic metal that can leach into drinking water when pipes corrode, potentially causing serious health problems, particularly for young children and pregnant women, even at low exposure levels, according to the EPA. The EPA, along with state agencies, such as MassDEP, have mandated the elimination of lead water pipes by local communities.

As recently as 2015-2016, close to 5,000 of Malden’s 12,000 water lines were believed to be lead lines, but through some targeted action by the City of Malden and with the leadership of the Malden City Council, there has been a steady program of lead pipe replacement, which has knocked this down progressively. A major move to address this issue was the push by the City Council, led by Councillor-at-Large Craig Spadafora, to enact a city ordinance mandating the removal of lead pipes by local homeowners and business owners, which was accomplished in 2017. Since then, Lip recapped at the December 10 meeting, Malden has used some $5 million in grants – shepherded in 2022 ($3.6 million) and again just this past May 2024 ($1.4 million) by U.S. Rep. and House Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-5th District) to this city – to help fund the lead replacement initiatives.

City Engineer Lip told the Council at the December 10 meeting that the whole lead pipe replacement process has been “a collaborative effort between our department, the Mayor’s office, [City Controller] Chuck Ranaghan and OSCPD [Office of Strategic Community Planning and Development]”. Lip relayed that just this past October a report was unveiled with a complete inventory of all the water service lines in Malden’s public water system.

Water service lines inventory completed

Water service lines are the pipes that carry water from the water lines in the street to Malden’s homes, schools and other buildings. The inventory lists the type of material for each service line – whether it’s copper, galvanized steel, lead or plastic. Lip said completing the inventory was an important step in the City’s effort to identify and replace 100% of the lead service lines in the public water system. It is part of an overall 10-year plan – established in 2022 – to replace all lead lines in Malden. It was estimated this 10-year plan would cost upward of $35 million overall.

Ward 2 Councillor Paul Condon, the longest-serving Councillor in city history, said he was pleased with the report and the status of “one of the most important projects we’ve undertaken [in this community].”

“You’ve done a fine job,” Councillor Condon said. “[The Engineering Dept.] and Maria Luise have been a driving force with meetings and updates, providing information on this project.”

“We’re pretty much on target, and unless we lose steam, I think we can do it by ’32,” Councillor Condon added, in regard to the replacement project.

“It started with Councillor [Craig] Spadafora spearheading the ordinance, which established the initiative to help the private side to replace their lead lines, and we’ve got a lot of help from the MWRA and our federal legislators along the way,” Ward 1 Councillor Peg Crowe said.

Councillor-at-Large Karen Colón Hayes said the MWRA zero-interest loan program “is great for the city.” “We have to make sure the information is easily accessible by everyone whom this program could benefit [in] our community,” Councillor Colón Hayes said. “It’s a safety issue for our residents.”

McDonald: building awareness around community

Councillor-at-Large Carey McDonald said, “We’ve been successful in building awareness around the community; it’s helpful to see the progress we’ve made over time, and it’s significant to see how much we’ve spent, so we can share [that information] with our constituents,” in reference to the $25 million in joint expenditures the city intends to make overall on lead pipe replacement.

“We’ve come a very long way; it’s encouraging to see we have gone above and beyond what has been required of us,” Councillor-at-Large Ryan O’Malley, a longtime advocate of lead pipe replacement ever since his first election to the City Council in 2015.