The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality has awarded over 9 million dollars to help improve water infrastructure in communities across the state.
The grants will go to 18 communities and will help with lead service line removal, updating inventories, or updating their management assessment plan.
Izabel Hartman is with the DEQ. She said the department is using the grants to learn how best to help communities removing lead service lines.
“We’re hoping that communities can begin to remove lead service lines and provide feedback in terms of what works well, what roadblocks might be, things like that.”
Saginaw, Evart, and Manistee each received a portion of the 9.5 million dollars.
Hartman said the water systems improvements are expected to be completed by May of 2019.