The city’s most significant request is about $40 million to replace lead lines and underground utilities for an estimated 5,300 residential properties — including 1,086 in the Superfund site and an estimated 4,221 homes in East Chicago built before lead-based paint was banned by the EPA in 1978.

Copeland also proposes coordinating lead pipe replacement efforts in the Superfund site with the EPA as the federal agency excavates and cleans contaminated properties. The $40 million also covers sequential water testing — more rigorous than testing required under the federal Lead and Copper Rule — for an estimated 5,776 properties elsewhere in the city.

Those estimates are by the city's utilities director.

The EPA in December said it found elevated lead levels in 18 homes within the USS Lead Superfund site through sequential testing due to lead plumbing materials and insufficient use of corrosion control chemicals. EPA has said the results indicate a system-wide problem.

Several community groups petitioned the EPA last week to use its emergency powers, as the agency did in Flint, Michigan, to immediately provide, or order the city or state to provide, free faucet filters that meet EPA standards or distribute bottled water.