ATHOL – A delay in the distribution of $50 million in federal funding for lead pipe replacement in Massachusetts may impact some communities, but Athol will not be among them.

In condemning the delay, Governor Maura Healey said Tuesday, “Funding local projects is vital to get lead out of our drinking water. Massachusetts has some of the oldest housing stock and water infrastructure in the nation, and lead service lines remain a threat to public health, particularly for young children.”

Healey added that the funds also stimulate the state’s economy by creating construction jobs related to replacing outdated infrastructure.

“We urge the Trump administration to cease this dangerous delay in critical funding,” she said.

In May 2024, the EPA announced the 2024 Lead Grant allocation amount of $50.1 million, according to Mass.gov. These funds have facilitated the removal of harmful lead from drinking water by supporting public water systems for inventorying lead service lines and creating plans for the replacement of those lines.

However, the Trump administration is delaying allocation of the 2024 Lead Grant to the Massachusetts Clean Water Trust while it conducts a review against the president’s Executive Orders. There is no timeline for when the funds will be released.

Contacted to discuss any impact the delay might have on Athol, Assistant Public Works Director Paul Raskevitz explained the town completed its ‘Get the Lead Out’ effort around four months ago.

The campaign to rid the town of lead pipes started in April of 2023. The town’s water division undertook a service line inventory and assisted water customers to identify and remove lead service lines. The effort took about a year to complete, he said, adding that no federal funds were used.

“We were able to verify all of our ‘unknowns,’” said Raskevitz, “and we have no lead service lines in Athol, to our knowledge, judging from the last survey we did.”

He explained that “sometimes the customers had actual lead pipes, not just joints. Or they had galvanized pipes that were lead-lined.”

Raskevitz said every community in Massachusetts has been required to address the problem of lead pipes.

“We had to go through every service line in town and any that were unknown we had to verify,” he said. “We had to either dig down to the line itself and look at it, or we had some of our retirees come in and look at some of the spots they had worked on the past so that they could verify which lines had been replaced. It was a good exercise for updating a lot of our inventory as well.”

Service lines, he explained, are the lines that feed water to a home or business from the municipal water main. The municipal water lines “were never in question,” he said. “Generally, I’ve never seen those be lead, and I doubt they ever were.”

Athol, he said, has approximately 95 to 100 miles of municipal water lines to maintain.

Most smaller towns around Athol have no municipal water system, with homes and businesses relying on well water. According to the Mass.Gov website, homes with private wells do not have to be examined for lead pipes before being sold. It is therefore conceivable that older residences in smaller communities may still be fed by lead service lines. Local boards of health have primary jurisdiction over regulating private wells in those towns.

Greg Vine can be reached at gvineadn@gmail.com.