Chicago has a lead pipe problem.
The city estimates that about 412,000 of roughly 491,000 water service lines require replacement because they are known or suspected to contain lead. That’s the most of any city in the country.
Service lines are the underground pipes that send water to your home’s plumbing. When these and other plumbing materials contain lead, tiny pieces of the toxic metal can dissolve or flake off into the water coming out of your tap.
The city offers a lookup tool where residents can search for their address to see what their service line is made from. It also provides overall statistics on the number of lines requiring replacement.
But that information has never been mapped in a way that shows the public how the problem with lead service lines is distributed across Chicago — and how that intersects with poverty and race.
Inside Climate News, Grist and WBEZ have analyzed city data obtained through a public records request to create a lookup tool that allows Chicagoans to find out their risk by searching their own address. Users can also see where the problem is most acute and compare lead pipe distribution against race and poverty.
Scroll down for information on how to navigate our lead service line map, where the data comes from and how we analyzed it — and what to do if your service line might contain lead.
Why we mapped Chicago’s lead pipes
Last year, federal safe drinking water rules required, for the first time, that all water systems in the country take stock of their service lines and create inventories identifying their materials to submit to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. These inventories were the first step in the EPA’s new mandate for water systems to replace all of their lead service lines.
Guided by questions from residents and community organizers, we knew this data could illuminate where Chicago stands in dealing with its lead pipe problem, as well as information about how the work is being carried out.
We obtained documents through Freedom of Information Act requests to Chicago’s Department of Water Management and the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency.
We connected that information to people’s experiences living with lead pipes and trying to get them replaced by interviewing dozens of Chicagoans, policy and legal experts, public officials, scientists and advocates.
What we found
In previous stories, we’ve revealed that the city of Chicago aims to fully replace all its lead service lines by 2076 — which would put it 30 years behind a federal mandate. The city also has fallen short when it comes to notifying residents they might have lead pipes.
In this story, we found that lead pipes are a problem across the entire city, but neighborhoods on the South Side and the West Side are among the worst affected, as are areas with majority Black or Latino residents. The nine community areas with the highest percentage of pipes requiring replacement are all on the South Side. The 10th is Belmont Cragin, a majority Latino neighborhood on the Northwest Side.
Explore the map below or keep scrolling for how to use the map and what to do if you’re at risk.
How to use this map
This map shows the concentration of confirmed and suspected lead service lines across Chicago alongside distributions of race and poverty.
Using this interactive tool, you can see how the lead service line problem varies across the city at the level of census tracts and the city’s 77 community areas. Switch views to see how lead pipe distribution relates to poverty and race.
To see your own service line status or look at specific locations, enter a Chicago address to see its service line material.
For available addresses, the search tool will reveal the composition, if known, of the three components of the line or lines serving that location:
- The pipe that connects to the water main
- The public-side line, owned by the city, which runs under the sidewalk
- The private-side line, which runs into the building, connecting to the internal plumbing
The city Department of Water Management classifies entire service lines based on its knowledge about these components, putting them into one of four categories.
Lead: At least one component of the service line is known to be made of lead.
Galvanized Requiring Replacement: No components of the service line are known to be made from lead, but at least one is composed of galvanized steel, which can become contaminated with lead from upstream pipes.
Suspected Lead: The composition of the service line is unknown but is suspected to contain lead components, usually based on the building’s age.
Not Lead: None of the components of the line are made from or may be contaminated with lead. These are the only service lines that do not require replacement. They are in the minority across most of the city.
The map is based on data the city submitted to regulators on April 14, 2025, and will not reflect replacements after that date.
If your address doesn’t appear, don’t panic. Many household addresses are also missing from this inventory list, because in many cases, a single service line can serve multiple households. Some service lines are also logged in the inventory by the nearest intersection, rather than a numbered street address.
If your address does not appear, the tool will allow you to view nearby lines, which may include those serving your building.
This story is a partnership between WBEZ, Grist and Inside Climate News.
