by Nicole Bradford
Pearland city leaders this month approved a contract complying with a mandate from the Environmental Protection Agency, but facing costs of nearly $800,000, they were less than pleased.
“This is the classic example of an unfunded mandate,” Mayor Kevin Cole said. “No money attached to it — ‘go do it.’ And if you don’t do it, you probably have federal funds that can be withheld from you.”
The EPA’s revised lead and copper requirements mean that water service leads — the service lines that connect a water main to plumbing in a home or building — must be inventoried “on both the public and private side,” City Manager Trent Epperson said. “If they are older than a certain date, we have to inventory those to see if they have lead or galvanized pipe.”
Since the mandate must be completed by Oct. 16, the city, on July 22, contracted the remainder of the inventory to LJ Environmental Services for $619,500 after expending an estimated $200,000 on an initial round of inspections.
Funding for the contracts will come from the city’s utility fund.
“If we have a rate action, this is caused by your government, right, wrong or indifferent,” Cole said. “Our rate payers pay for this in their rate.”
