Press Release: Gov. Evers, DNR Announce Funding to Help 12 Communities Remove Over 15,000 Lead Service Lines to Ensure Clean, Safe Drinking Water for Wisconsinites Across the State 

State of Wisconsin sent this bulletin at 10/22/2026 05:00 AM CDT
Office of Governor Tony Evers
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: October 22, 2026
Contact: GovPress@wisconsin.gov 
 
Gov. Evers, DNR Announce Funding to Help 12 Communities Remove Over 15,000 Lead Service Lines to Ensure Clean, Safe Drinking Water for Wisconsinites Across the State 
 
MADISON — Gov. Tony Evers, together with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR), today announced that more than $102 million has been allocated for financial assistance through the Lead Service Line Replacement Program to 12 municipalities to remove an estimated 15,028 private lead water service lines.

“Since Day One, my administration and I have been hard at work to get harmful contaminants out of our water, homes, schools, and communities for good, and a big part of that effort has been replacing or turning off lead service lines across the state,” said Gov. Evers. “No amount of lead is safe for kids, and thanks to the help of federal funding made possible by partners like Sen. Baldwin, we’ve been able to remove over 86,000 private and public service lines across our state, with more to come. This is a really big deal, and I am glad we are able to get these funds out to the communities that need them to ensure Wisconsin’s kids and families have access to the safe, clean drinking water they deserve.”

A subprogram of the federal Safe Drinking Water Loan Program, the Lead Service Line Replacement Program provides funding to municipalities for both public and private lead service line replacements and related lead service line inventory work to protect public health, utilizing funding provided by former President Joe Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL). Passed by the U.S. Congress in 2021 and championed by U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsin), the BIL included $50 billion for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to strengthen and rebuild the nation’s water infrastructure, including $15 billion for lead service line replacement nationwide. Additional information about the current Lead Service Line Replacement Program can be found on the DNR’s website.

“Every Wisconsin family deserves to know that when they turn on the tap, the water coming out is safe and clean,” said Sen. Baldwin. “That’s why I was proud to support the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and deliver funding to remove lead pipes, protect Wisconsinites’ health, and ensure every family has access to clean drinking water.”

Since 2019, Gov. Evers has allocated nearly $500 million to replace lead service lines in all corners of the state. These investments support the replacement of a total of 86,094 lead service lines, including 19,869 public-side lead service lines and 66,225 private-side lead service lines. Notably, Gov. Evers proposed an additional $200 million investment in lead service line replacement in his 2025-27 state budget proposal, which would have enabled all communities who applied for funding in this application round to have received support. Unfortunately, the Republican-controlled Joint Finance Committee rejected the governor’s proposal.

Examples of preliminarily approved projects include:

City of Neenah, Winnebago County | Over $1.9 million
The funding is expected to facilitate the removal of 249 lead service lines in low-income census tracts. $1,451,363 is principal forgiveness, and the remaining $483,788 will be available at an interest rate of 0.25 percent. 

City of Wausau, Marathon County | Over $10.6 million
The funding is expected to facilitate the removal of 1,194 lead service lines in low-income census tracts and throughout the city. $4,889,556 is principal forgiveness, and the remaining $5,729,259 will be available at an interest rate of 0.25 percent. 

City of Mellen, Ashland County | Over $773,000
The funding is expected to facilitate the removal of 70 lead service lines throughout the city. All $773,278 is entirely principal forgiveness.

Additional information, including the 2027 Lead Service Line Replacement Program funding list, is available on the DNR’s website.

ENSURING CLEAN, SAFE WATER AT HOME, SCHOOL, AND IN THE COMMUNITY

No level of lead is considered safe for kids and, as governor, Gov. Evers has made efforts to replace lead service lines across the state a top priority. Last year, Gov. Evers announced that the Wisconsin Department of Health Services finalized a new rule, making permanent an emergency rule that the governor approved in January 2025, to combat lead poisoning statewide by lowering the lead poisoning threshold to 3.5 µg/dL. By lowering the lead poisoning threshold, more kids and families will be eligible for lead poisoning and intervention resources, including education programming, screening, care coordination or follow-up services for kids not covered by a third-party payer, and other activities related to poisoning or exposure.

Additionally, the governor’s 2025-27 Biennial Budget proposal included an investment of more than $300 million to help get lead out of Wisconsinites’ pipes, bubblers, schools, homes, and child care centers for good. Unfortunately, Republicans in the Wisconsin State Legislature gutted the governor’s efforts to clean up lead, PFAS, and other harmful contaminants statewide and rejected hundreds of millions of dollars in investments to ensure kids, families, and farmers have access to safe and clean drinking water. Despite this setback, Gov. Evers maintains that replacing lead service lines and ensuring Wisconsinites have access to clean and safe water is essential.

ADDITIONAL EVERS ADMINISTRATION EFFORTS TO ENSURE WISCONSINITES HAVE ACCESS TO CLEAN, SAFE DRINKING WATER

Gov. Evers declared 2019 the Year of Clean Drinking Water, and for the past seven-plus years, the governor has prioritized efforts to invest in clean water infrastructure and ensure Wisconsinites have access to safe, clean water statewide.   

To continue building upon the governor’s work to ensure Wisconsin’s kids and families have clean, safe drinking water, the 2025-27 Biennial Budget signed by Gov. Evers last year increases borrowing for the state’s Environmental Improvement Fund by $731.6 million to secure federal clean water and safe drinking water capitalization grants over the next four years. This will help meet the increasing demand from local communities who need support to upgrade local water systems and infrastructure to ensure every Wisconsin kid, family, and community has clean, safe drinking water.      

In addition, the 2025-27 Biennial Budget provided: 
  • $2 million for the development of a remedial action plan for the remediation of arsenic-contaminated sediment in the Kewaunee Marsh;  
  • $4 million to be used for remedial action at the Amcast Superfund site;  
  • $6 million in bonding to be used for the Kenosha Dunes restoration project;  
  • $7.5 million for contaminated sediment removal from sites in the Great Lakes or its tributaries that are on Wisconsin’s impaired waters list to continue protecting this resource;  
  • $4 million for Urban Nonpoint Source cost-sharing and the Municipal Flood Control Program;  
  • $6.5 million to counties for capital projects that implement land and water resource management plans under the Targeted Runoff Management Program;  
  • $7 million for grants to counties for implementation of land and water resource management plans, including cost-share grants to landowners that install conservation practices on their land, such as erosion prevention strategies, through the Soil and Water Resource Management Program;  
  • $4 million for the repair, reconstruction, and removal of dams;  
  • Over $1.8 million over the biennium to update the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources’ systems and improve customer service for Wisconsinites; and  
  • More than $12 million to support county conservation staff around the state. 

Earlier this year, the governor also enacted the state’s first-ever comprehensive PFAS bill, which will provide over $125 million to help address PFAS contamination and ensure Wisconsinites in communities across the state will have access to clean water. Gov. Evers spent years working across the aisle with Republican lawmakers to negotiate and usher two bipartisan bills, Assembly Bill 130, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 200, and Assembly Bill 131, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 201, which, together, facilitate the release of the $125 million in stalled PFAS investments that had sat unspent in Madison since the signing of the 2023-25 Biennial Budget in July 2023. This week, the Evers Administration launched the first two grant programs to be authorized under Act 200 and Act 201, the PFAS Community Grants Sampling Program and the Wisconsin PFAS Private Well Testing Program, which together will provide funding to help communities sample private wells and public water supplies for PFAS contamination. Additional grant programs to aid in the state’s efforts to ensure clean, safe water for Wisconsinites, also to be funded by the PFAS Trust Fund, will be announced in the coming months.

Last month, Gov. Evers also celebrated the state budget committee’s release of $10 million from the state’s PFAS Trust Fund to help provide safe, clean drinking water to families and communities impacted by contamination from Tyco Fire Products LP’s Fire Technology Center. Funding will be used to provide clean, safe drinking water to those who have had their water polluted by PFAS contamination in the area, as well as testing and replacing contaminated wells and installing treatment systems. 
 
An online version of this release is available here.
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