The city of South Haven will be replacing old water lines as part of a state mandate.
City civil engineer Bella Haberski tells us that the South Haven Area Water and Sewer Authority will begin replacing approximately 2,100 water lines, with work starting today.
“It’s all throughout the city, and they’re also verifying lines,” Haberski says. “They’re not all necessarily lead lines, but if they have any galvanized lines, then they’re just assumed that they would have been previously connected. They’re getting replaced too, just as if they were lead.”
Continuing through June, Five Star Energy Services LLC will be verifying the materials of unknown water service lines throughout the city. They will replace any lines identified as lead or previously connected to lead with galvanized materials, which could take up to two years.
“It could be up to three years, it could be next year,” Haberski says. “It just depends on how many replacements they actually have to do. Once they actually start verifying, they’ll find out how many service lines actually have to be replaced. Any places that we don’t have a good confidence that what the material is, we have to go back and check. Even if we think it’s probably copper, we still have to go look because we don’t have documented proof.”
Property owners should expect visits from work crews, and if they are affected, their water service may be disrupted for a few hours. Haberski says it will be shut off during the day and no more than 4 hours.
This project is supported by a low-interest revolving fund loan from Michigan, along with $5.8 million in grant funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
