Ironwood receives water asset grant

IRONWOOD — The city of Ironwood was awarded grant funds to help investigate residential water service lines to determine which contain lead or galvanized steel, according to a Tuesday announcement from state Rep. Greg Markkanen, R-Hancock.

The nearly $215,000 Drinking Water Asset Management grant was awarded by the state Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy and funded through the Michigan Clean Water Plan. The Ironwood portion is part of a $500 million investment for infrastructure upgrades, such as replacing water service lines, expanding undersized or outdated sewer systems, cleaning up toxic contamination and addressing failing septic systems around the state.

“Clean drinking water and wastewater management are crucial components to our quality of life,” Markkanen said. “I am committed to making the western U.P. a better place to live, work and raise a family and I will continue fighting for opportunities like these for our region.”

The city of Ironwood responsibilities associated with this grant will be to hire a contractor to “pot hole” approximately 300 water service lines to verify the material type of the service lines, said Scott Erickson, city manager of Ironwood. 

“This will be a randomized process of selecting the service lines to be ‘potholed,’ which will help us evaluate the accuracy of our records and help determine how many service lines we have that will need to be replaced over the next 20 years,” Erickson said.

—Tom LaVenture