In the place her grandparents called home, Mary Santy watches on as utility crews dig up the street she grew up on.
"I'm real glad they're changing these because the water quality will be better," said Santy.
Crews with the Green Bay Water Utility are replacing pipes made of lead in old neighborhoods.
More than two hundred fifty pipes have been replaced this year and Green Bay Water Utility general manager Nancy Quirk is tracking how many are left.
"We're shooting for December 31st of 2020 to have all of our lead services out of the ground that we know of," said Quirk.
The city and water utility plant is covering the cost of replacing the main lines. and the Department of Natural Resource's safe water drinking loan as well as city council allocated dollars are helping homeowners so they don't have to pay to have pipes replaced. The cost to replace pipes can usually stack up to between two and three thousand dollars.
Water comes into your home through one of four pipes, copper, galvanized metal, plastic and lead. According to water utility experts lead pipes will turn shiny if you scratch them.
In Appleton, they've been replacing lead pipes for years now, putting them ahead of the game compared to other communities.
"We've been replacing lead pipes for about twenty years and because of those efforts we're now down to about less than one percent of our pipes being lead," said Appleton Public Works deputy director, Nate Loper.
Less than 1 percent is about 190 homes left out of 26,000 identified as having lead pipes. The plan is to have those pipes completely replaced in the next five years.
In Oshkosh 7,000 homes still have lead pipes, but by using the DNR's safe water drinking loan, water utility crews are working to replace those. There's no time frame on when they'll have all the lead pipes replaced.
We spoke with health professionals to see how dangerous these lead pipes are.
"It's not uncommon to find lead levels but they're usually at a lower level that a specific intervention doesn't need to be done," said Brown County interim health department director, Debbie Armbruster.
When lead levels reach five parts per deciliter in the blood that's when they can cause damage but health officials say they don't find levels that high often and when they do it's not usually from water.
"Often times we find it in older homes where there may be some lead based paint," said Armbruster.
According to the mayo clinic lead can cause:
Developmental delays
Learning difficulties
Irritability, fatigue and weight loss
Abdominal pain
Vomiting
And even hearing loss.
To avoid lead in your water, Armbruster suggests a simple flushing.
"If you flush it for three to five minutes flush the water every morning for three to five minutes you're not going to have the pool of lead there to ingest," said Armbruster.
A simple solution you can do to avoid lead in your water, while crews work to replace old water lines to meet current safety codes.
