Heaton: Lead line inventory ‘a big thing’ for Blair

Published 2:37 pm Monday, October 5, 2026

Blair is starting a federally mandated inventory of every water service line in the city, and some residents could see crews digging in their yards, said CJ Heaton, deputy city administrator of public works.

“We’re working on the lead line inventory. That’s gonna be a big thing in the next year to get that done,” Heaton said. “Several years ago, the federal government basically mandated that all water systems — so the City of Blair has its own water system — has to identify or inventory all lead, galvanized or basically non-copper service line type. And any lead or galvanized now have to be replaced by 2037.”

“Out of the roughly 3,500 customers that the city has, about a half of those either — I think we have 20-some lead lines, a couple hundred galvanized, and 1,500 or so people that just … I don’t know.”

“What I’m working on today is actually to try to get SRF funding to help figure this all out.”

“Depending on what information we have or don’t have, it may come down to we may have somebody dig a hole in your front yard to see what your line’s made of.”

Washington Street

City officials will meet with the Nebraska Department of Transportation about the city’s request to control Washington Street, a state highway, so trucks can be directed to the bypass. “It’s a state highway. We cannot dictate — we can’t basically just make it a no-truck zone. It’s a state highway. We have to leave it that way. The state essentially dictates who, what, how can use it.”

“We actually have a meeting within two weeks. … We have a new district engineer, so I reached out to set up a meeting just to make the introduction. And that’s gonna be on our agenda, is what do we need to do to keep this thing moving?”

Asked what it took to get the state to the table, Heaton said: “Me being kind of a pain in their side. I have to check emails probably monthly. Anytime I get in front of somebody from … NDOT, ‘We wanna do this.'”

“It has been probably a year and a half ago, the council passed a resolution authorizing me to write a letter requesting that. That’s what I was led on to believe, that that’s the start of the process. I don’t know where it went after it left me, but I wasn’t pleased with the response.”

“I’ll have a better idea after we meet and get a sense of the new district engineer. And then if I don’t think it’s moving quick enough, then I think I have the mayor’s support to reach out directly to the Highway Commission. We’ll just start barking up the chain.”

Water and sewer rates

“It’s not the first thing I wake up and I’m like, ‘I’m gonna raise everybody’s water, sewer rates today.'”

“I live in Omaha, so the MUD rates, as you can see on the slide I shared with the council at the last meeting, are probably the highest in the state, and Blair is currently the lowest in the state, or one of the lowest.”

“You can see it even in the levies and water, sewer rates. We’ve tried to keep things as low as possible.”

“A gallon of gas has gone up, diesel’s gone up, steel prices, lead time on equipment. And none of what we’re doing is to hire thousands of more people or pay exorbitant wages. We’re trying to make sure that we can keep water flowing, keep sewage flowing and not disrupt anybody’s services.”

“David (Scott, Deputy City Administrator of Operations) and I are working on a rate modeling software that when this is done, it’s gonna be pretty neat, that I could get down into the nitty-gritty and say, ‘Well, the industrial users are costing the city X amount, but we’re only recapturing a half of that’ … or hypothetically. So we would be able to tailor those rates a little bit more going forward.”

E-bikes

At a recent conference, Heaton attended sessions on community improvement districts, water operator training and e-bikes.

“There’s a lot more nuances to it, I guess, than I realized, that it’s not a one-size-fits-all thing.”

“I would think in the next year you might see some legislation from the state, ’cause Nebraska’s a Dillon’s Rule state, so the cities can only do what the state allows us to do.”

“Some towns are doing ordinances on e-bikes now, but they caution that, without the state dictating what you can and can’t do, there could be some slippery slopes on are those cities overextending kind of their limits. … Right now, it’s just not defined well enough to say, ‘This type of bike is okay. This type isn’t.’ Where you can ride it, where you can’t.”