MANKATO — West Mankato will be the focus of a $1 million project to replace potentially toxic lead water lines. Bids are already being sought from contractors interested in doing the work, which will begin this fall and finish by June.
City leaders intend to tackle the entire city over the next eight years, so all properties that have the problematic piping will get their turn if state and/or federal grants continue to flow. But with each lead line potentially causing health impacts, particularly for children and pregnant women, how did west Mankato get picked to go first?
Cities had some leeway in determining how to prioritize the use of limited state and federal funds under Environmental Protection Agency guidelines. Among the possible focus areas are “clusters of known or suspected lead service lines” and “locations that support efficient service replacements within a defined geographic area,” according to a project feasibility report completed for Mankato’s Department of Public Works.
West Mankato is “an established residential area characterized by older housing stock where lead service lines are more likely to be present due to historic construction practices,” according to the report. “Portions of this neighborhood were developed during periods when lead service materials were commonly used, resulting in higher probability of remaining lead services within the distribution system.”
Other prioritization strategies allowed by the EPA are to target funds at areas with a disproportionate number of children under the age of five or at service lines throughout the city that provide drinking water to schools, daycare facilities or other properties serving large numbers of young kids.
The latter was the plan in New Ulm, according to Mayor Kathleen Backer when lobbying for state funding for the initiative earlier this year.
At that point, staff in the 172-year-old city had identified more than 300 lead service lines with the status of another 2,164 pipes unknown. With an estimated total need of $6.9 million and just $1 million in grant funds available, New Ulm would focus on replacing water lines to day care centers, schools, churches and other priority locations, Backer said.
While west Mankato will be the target of the Mankato’s grant funds this year, the City Council at its last regular meeting agreed to chip in $100,000 in local money for a few emergency replacements elsewhere in town as other neighborhoods await their turn for the more comprehensive fix. City utilities superintendent Kyle Hinrichs asked for the appropriation from Mankato’s water utility reserves to ensure that homeowners elsewhere in town — if a lead line is discovered during a routine street reconstruction or after a service line breaks — aren’t paying $5,000 to $20,000 for an emergency fix even while west Mankato residents are getting the same replacement paid for entirely with grant funds.
“So that’s what were utilizing these funds for — for the gaps in the federally funded replacements that will be happening these next eight years,” Hinrichs said of the local appropriation.
The council approved $100,000 for 2026, and a similar amount will be added to future municipal budgets to continue to finance six to 10 emergency fixes each year in parts of Mankato not yet targeted with the broader grant-based neighborhood lead pipe replacement project.