That's the number of known lead service lines in Illinois— more than any other state—with another 820,000 suspected lines still unidentified, prompting the federal government to announce $295 million in drinking water funding for the state, part of a $921 million regional investment. Chicago alone has more than 400,000 of the toxic pipes, the most of any U.S. city, a legacy of a plumbing code thatrequiredlead service lines until Congress banned the practice in 1986. The announcement comes one month after the Trump administration proposed a 90 percent budget cut to the very Drinking Water State Revolving Fund programs through which the new money flows and the same week it moved to roll back federal limits on PFAS "forever chemicals" in drinking water.
