MILWAUKEE — After a whirlwind of a day meeting President Joe Biden, a local plumber is trying to get back to his normal rewarding work, replacing lead service lines across the neighborhood where he grew up.
“Yesterday was unbelievable,” Rashawn Spivey, owner of Hero Plumber said. “My head is still spinning a little bit because everything was like a blur. But we had to get back to work. I’m happy to have some work today.”
For days leading up to the presidential visit, Spivey was preparing. Wednesday, he welcomed Biden to his shop near 27th & Atkinson, to show him around. The visit was meant to highlight an example of Black-owned small business success. The Small Business Administration says loans to Black-owned small businesses have tripled since 2020. Things like that help minority business owners overcome systemic hurdles to do incredible work, like Spivey is doing.
Lifesaving work, truly.
“We’ve done over 600 [lead service lines],” Spivey said. “Then we worked with other contractors on like another 150 or so.”
Spivey says his crew replaces two lead service lines per day in the city, providing clean, safe drinking water to homes and businesses. The President highlighted the work he did replacing a lead service line for a daycare, providing children, the most at-risk for lead poisoning, life’s most simple necessity.
“It feels good,” Spivey said. “It feels good to be the plumber.”
Thursday, his crew was replacing a line outside of a vacant home. Sure, no one lives inside now, but it’s work like this that will make that home more attractive for people to live in. His work is adding to a more vibrant and thriving city one pipe at a time.
“When we get done with a job, it does feel good,” Spivey said. “You can look back at what you just did and feel good.”
Spivey is one of a handful of contractors the city utilizes to replace lead service lines. Originally, the city said it would take 60 years to replace some 60,000 lead service lines in the city. With federal funding, the Biden Administration is challenging communities to complete tasks like this within 10 years.
For Spivey, he’s got another 100 lead service line replacements on the books and he anticipates, that number will continue to increase.
“These jobs used to only get done when the pipe leaked,” Spivey said. “Now, the city is getting ready to do more work. We need work!”
It’s about time to watch on your time. Stream local news and weather 24/7 by searching for “TMJ4” on your device.
Available for download on Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, and more.
