CPS students teach and play chess in Ghana – Chicago Tribune

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Chicago spent the past decade tearing up streets to replace aging, sometimes leaky water mains, borrowing more than $500 million and doubling the cost of water to pay for the work.

On every one of the 792 miles dug up, crews hired by the Department of Water Management connected new cast-iron water mains to old lead pipes known as service lines that bring water into single-family homes and two-flats.

The department continued this routine even after a 2013 federal study of Chicago homes found it can expose people to alarming concentrations of lead, a brain-damaging metal with no safe level of exposure.

Now, with fewer than 90 miles of water mains still to be replaced, state law is forcing city workers and contractors for the first time to pull out toxic pipes at the same time.

Here’s what else is happening today. And remember, for the latest breaking news in Chicago, visit chicagotribune.com/breaking and sign up to get our alerts on all your devices.

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