You can bet that, given the awful lead-poisoning situation in Flint, Michigan, public policy makers around the nation are looking over their shoulders and wondering what they're going to do about aging, leaded water pipes in their communities. It's just one of many problems with U.S. drinking water supplies (arsenic, bacteria and radium are three of the others), and not even, scientifically speaking, necessarily the biggest threat, but lead right now is the most political problem, thanks to stupid, money-is-everything decisions by Michigan state government that have doomed thousands of Flint residents, especially including children, to lead poisoning.
Among politicians worrying they'll get burned if they don't act are those in Wisconsin's current state government hegemony, consisting of elected and appointed Republican Party adherents. They face what from their standpoint is a conundrum: They ignore this problem at their political peril. But, spend money on it to help municipalities, and they'll be aiding the very local governments they regard as antithetical to their top-down, centralist authoritarianism, including local governments run by the opposition Democratic Party. What to do, what to do?
Ah, here's a solution: Announce a lead-pipe replacement program, albeit a poorly funded one, especially in the case of Milwaukee, far and away the state's biggest city and a traditional Democratic stronghold. In an April 29 announcement the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources said it would redirect some $11.8 million in funding (i.e., other, existing water-infrastructure projects will get that much less money, because, hey, spending more on the little people is always out of the question) and offer grants to municipalities to help remove old lead service lines bringing drinking water into homes.
Those service lines are legally homeowner property, but an increasing number of homeowners, late of the shrinking middle class, can't afford the $3,000 to $5,000 it typically costs to replace such lines.
Ah, but the program surely will help, right? Well, it's better than bupkis. Barely. To use an appropriate analogy, it's a drop in the bucket. But in DNR press-release lingo, it's an "innovative" and "major" program. Yeah, a major PR program.
In Milwaukee alone, the lead-pipe problem afflicts an estimated 70,000 residences. The estimated cost of replacing all those pipes runs past half a billion dollars. Milwaukee far and away has the greatest need, but if the DNR were to give the city every dime of the $11.8 million reallocation, it would only be enough to handle one out of every 50 or so city homes in need.
But the DNR isn't going to come close to doing that. Its distribution formula (as is typical for a GOP program) screws big, bad, urban Milwaukee. It's like saying the streets are bad in the poor neighborhoods of East L.A., so let's repave Beverly Hills.
Under the DNR program, if you're a community of under 50,000 residents, you could fully replace 100 home service lines with the maximum allowable grant. However, Milwaukee, with more than ten times that population, would be able to replace no more than 250 lines. So, in actuality, the aid at most would help less than four of every thousand homes with lead pipes.
From an April 29 DNR news release:
Disadvantaged municipalities are determined based on factors including population and median household income. Under this proposal, municipalities with a population of less than 50,000 will be eligible for up to $300,000 for lead service line replacement costs on private property. For medium-sized communities, that cap will be $500,000, and for the largest municipalities – those with a population greater than 500,000 – the cap will be $750,000.
Under the program, communities would determine how to distribute the funds to homeowners. If providing full funding for replacement at an average cost of $3,000 per household, smaller municipalities could replace approximately 100 lead service lines, larger communities more than 166 lines and the largest municipalities more than 250 lead service lines. If the program proves successful, DNR would seek to provide a similar level of funding for the fiscal year starting July 1, 2017.
Only one city in Wisconsin has more than 500,000 people: Milwaukee. And besides containing the state’s largest low-income population, it’s pretty blue politically. Perhaps that is why Republicans once again are dealing with the "disadvantaged" city by treating it to even more comparative disadvantage. In earlier moves, the state GOP has clawed back hundreds of millions of dollars from the city's municipal and public school funding while imposing unfunded mandates. And in that this new program has special irony: The tragedy in Flint happened precisely because Michigan state government, another GOP stronghold, decided to impose itself on the local government and fiddle with its finances. Oops.
Now, to be sure, the Wisconsin DNR says that if this new, one-shot program works, the agency will seek to provide a similar level of funding for the fiscal year starting July 1, 2017. That's great, or, at least, it's better than nothing. But here's the thing: At that rate, absent federal aid or other cost-sharing, should the DNR even bother to grant Milwaukee continuing full shares under the present formula, it should only take about TWO HUNDRED AND EIGHTY YEARS to fix the city's lead-pipe problem.
That's assuming, of course, that the DNR keeps on funding the program year after year and century after century. But, hey, your state Republicans have got this thing covered! For a few months, anyway.