Cape May County, New Jersey
Wildwood City knows where its lead lines are. The work is replacing them by 2031.
Its filing records 7,252 connections to replace and no connections of unrecorded material, so the question here is scheduling and cost rather than searching. Towns still carrying unknowns have to pay to find theirs before they can plan at all.
What the law requires
P.L.2021 c.183 obliges every public community water system in New Jersey to inventory every service connection, notify the public about what it finds, and replace all lead service lines by 2031. Progress is reported to the state each year and posted publicly.
Wildwood City's lead-line duty is split across more than one water system. Wildwood City is served by more than one public community water system, at least one of which is the town's own. The c.183 duty is split, and which parcels fall to whom has to be resolved before anything is promised.
Why a known count is a scheduling problem rather than a search
Wildwood City's filing puts 7,252 connections on the replacement list and leaves nothing unidentified. That removes the most expensive uncertainty in this programme, which is paying to find out what you have.
What is left is a scheduling and disruption problem: which streets, in what order, alongside which paving and utility work, and how the required resident notification is handled for each one.
Ordering still decides the cost, but the thing being ordered is replacement work rather than investigation.
Where Wildwood City stands
Wildwood City is served by 2 public community water systems: 1 operated by the town (Wildwood City WD) and 1 regional supplier (NJ American Water - Cape May Courthouse). The c.183 duty follows the system, not the municipal boundary, so Wildwood City's own obligation is what its own systems reported in its 2024 filing.
Wildwood City WD (PWID NJ0514001) reported 0 known lead service lines, 7,252 galvanised lines requiring replacement, 0 connections whose material was never recorded, 9,204 confirmed not lead, as of its 2024 submission. With no unknowns and no lead reported, this system's inventory is complete on its own account, which is a materially different position from a town still resolving unknowns.
NJ American Water - Cape May Courthouse (PWID NJ0506010) reported 1 known lead lines and 1,669 unknown-material connections in 2024 across its whole service area, which covers more than Wildwood City. That figure is the system's, not the town's, and the share falling inside Wildwood City has to be resolved parcel by parcel before anyone can put a number on it.
NJ American Water - Cape May Courthouse
- Lead service lines reported
- 1
- Galvanised requiring replacement
- 49
- Material UNKNOWN
- 1,669
- Confirmed not lead
- 1,161
Wildwood City WDthe town's own
- Lead service lines reported
- 0
- Galvanised requiring replacement
- 7,252
- Material UNKNOWN
- 0
- Confirmed not lead
- 9,204
What the state publishes, and what it does not
Published, free
NJDEP publishes how many connections each system reported as lead, galvanised, unknown and confirmed non-lead. Those are the numbers above. Systems over 3,300 people also have to put an address lookup on their own website.
Not published anywhere
Which of those unknowns to open first. The state publishes counts, not an order, and an address lookup answers one property at a time. Nobody publishes a ranked list, which is the thing a crew schedule is actually built from.
That gap is what we work in. We hold construction year for every parcel in New Jersey and the plumbing permit history behind it, so we can put a system's unknowns in order and show the evidence for each one. It is a ranking, not a diagnosis: it says where to look first, and it never claims a particular property has lead.
The arithmetic, with the count already settled
7,252 connections already identified for replacement脳your cost to replace one=the programme, with no search to pay for first
The count is settled, so the variable is replacement cost per connection and the order the work is done in, not how much finding it will cost.
Funding, and what gates it
We have not confirmed this town's hazard mitigation plan yet.
Federal hazard-mitigation funding requires a current FEMA-approved plan. We match plans automatically by county and jurisdiction name, and this one did not resolve. It does not mean the plan is missing.
That is a gap in our record, not a finding about Wildwood City.
Lead replacement is financed through the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund, with principal forgiveness available. The borrower is the water system, which is the town itself only where the town runs its own water. Which of those Wildwood City is decides who applies.
How we know
- FEMA National Flood Hazard Layer flood zones and base flood elevation
- NJDEP MS4 outfalls the mapped storm-drainage network
- OpenFEMA HMA subapplications what happened to grant applications like yours
- FEMA Hazard Mitigation Plan Statuses the grant gate
- NJDEP service line inventory what each water system reported to the state, by year
Built from published federal and state records. Informational only, and not engineering, legal or funding advice. Confirm anything that matters with your municipal engineer and your State Hazard Mitigation Officer.
The Wildwood City read
A working session and a written read for Wildwood City: your unknowns in a ranked order with the evidence per connection, what your system has already filed, the funding route that matches who owns the duty here, and the resident notice drafted from the same list. Paid engagement, scoped in the first call.
Prefer to read first? Download the one-page Wildwood City summary.
More about Wildwood City
- ADU rules in Wildwood City Whether an accessory dwelling unit is allowed, how big, and what it costs
- Property scores in Wildwood City How the town permits, measured against every other New Jersey town