Syracuse lawmakers approved a plan for a third-party company to conduct lead testing in water.
120Water, an Indiana-based water testing and management company, will take over water testing for the city over the next year. The decision to move to a third-party company comes after incorrect testing procedures in the city led to some employees being placed on administrative leave. City Water Commissioner Robert Brandt said the third-party will help make things more manageable.
"They do residential testing, they do all the communication, they do all the labs," Brandt said. "They take care of the whole procedure."
The city is required to test 100 homes every six months. Brandt said the homes have already been identified at the city level but will need county and state approval. The council also voted to approve a lead service line replacement plan which will look to replace over twenty-five hundred privately owned lead service lines in the city. Brandt said this project is just the start of a larger lead service line plan.
"We're looking to, kick off our lead replacement program with, 2790 homes in the city of Syracuse that we've already replaced in 2005 to 2007," Brandt said. "We replaced, public side of the services. We're looking to go back in and replace all the private sides of the services now. And that kind of gives us a little bit of leeway to work on a bigger plan."
Brandt said the plan will move forward with little disruptions to roadways residents.
