Chicago to get $336 million loan from EPA to replace 30,000 lead wate…

Chicago, the epicenter of brain-damaging lead hazards in the United States, is borrowing $336 million from the federal government to replace thousands of water pipes made of the toxic metal.

The low-interest loan announced Friday by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency comes after decades of denials from city officials that Chicago suffers a widespread lead-in-water problem.

Money provided by the EPA is intended to replace 30,000 of the roughly 400,000 lead pipes known as service lines connecting homes and two-flats to the municipal water system.

[ A decade into the work, Chicago is finally taking out toxic lead pipes when it replaces water mains ]

There are more service lines made of lead in Chicago than any other American city, largely because clout-heavy unions ensured local ordinances required pipes made of the toxic metal until Congress banned their use in 1986.

A 2013 federal study of Chicago homes found that disturbing lead service lines can expose people to alarming…