Utility Yorkshire Water has started work on a £13 million project to replace lead water pipes with polyethylene plastic.
Engineering specialists, Morrison Utility Services (MUS) and Balfour Beatty, will be working on behalf of Yorkshire Water to install the new pipes.
The upgrade work is set to be completed by March 2017 and will cover Bradford, Rotherham, York, Leeds, Beverley, Harrogate and Hull.
Many lead water pipes date back to the Victorian era and as they are made from lead can increase the lead content in water, the utility said.
Yorkshire Water said that as polyethylene plastic pipes have a life span of around 100 years, they will also help reduce the amount of leaks that occur in the utility’s 31,000 kilometre network.
Luke Montgomery, Yorkshire Water’s public health manager, said: “We operate our water treatment works to control the risk of lead from pipework, and whilst our water sampling programme shows the vast majority of samples taken from lead pipes are safe we believe the best option is to remove lead pipes from our distribution system completely.”
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