Item - 2020.IE14.9

The Infrastructure and Environment Committee:

1.  Received the report (June 22, 2020) from the Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer for information.

This report is in response to a direction from the Infrastructure and Environment Committee on December 5, 2019, to report back on an analysis of options the City could employ to assist residents looking to replace private side lead water service pipes. 

The options identified for analysis included consideration of assistance via the Toronto Renovates program, grants and loans. A companion request for information centered on the potential cost of adding the pipe replacement cost to a homeowner borne line of credit with a financial institution is also considered in this report.

The City has previously studied lead pipe replacement initiatives on several occasions in the past and had prepared implementation steps for a lead pipe replacement loan program in 2015. At that time, for various policy and program issues, City Council did not adopt such a program.

Toronto Water continues to address the issue of lead in drinking water via such programs as:

-  Priority Lead Water Service Replacement Program which consists of the coordination of the replacement of the City's lead pipes when homeowners replace the lead service pipes on their private property.

-  Planned Capital Water Service Replacement which consists of the scheduled replacement of substandard water services in coordination with programmed capital works and infrastructure renewal programs such as watermain replacement, watermain structural lining, road reconstruction and sewer reconstruction.  These replacements are coordinated with other City Divisions to minimize disruption to local communities and for cost efficiencies.

-  Emergency Water Service Replacement which consists of the replacement of a City-owned water service pipe when a pipe that supplies water to a home is broken, has a leak or has low flow.