CINCINNATI — Seven Greater Cincinnati Water Works (GCWW) employees were disciplined for their role in the theft of up to $50,000 worth of underground lead pipes over the course of six years.
The city’s internal audit division discovered the theft during an April performance audit.
City investigators pulled surveillance video that showed workers loading scrap lead into the back of a dump truck in May that was later driven away by a maintenance worker, according to a Sept. 15 city human resources report.
That maintenance worker resigned in July in lieu of termination, after the city charged him internally with theft, according to the human resources report.
“I don’t think it’s a cultural problem here, I think this was an isolated incident and certainly we have dealt with this one incident,” said Interim Assistant City Manager Cathy Bailey, who served as executive director of GCWW from 2015 to 2025.
Andrea Yang, interim executive director of GCWW, said the city has not ruled out filing criminal charges against the maintenance worker in an effort to recoup some of its financial loss.
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Also allegedly part of the scheme, an assistant supervisor was suspended for 24 hours for neglect of duty, and five other workers received reprimand letters for dishonesty.
GCWW has been removing underground lead pipes across the city since 2018.
When it accelerated the lead removal process in 2019, it added a special dumpster to their Tennyson Pump Station, where lead pipes were supposed to be placed.
The container was installed by city-wide scrap metal disposal contractor Cohen Brothers, who were set to empty the dumpster and pay the city for lead.
The city report said the investigation began in 2025 when GCWW learned that lead crews had not placed any lead in the container since its installation in 2019.
“We have many, many dumpsters across the city, so unfortunately, there was never checking of that ... We assumed the employees were doing what they were supposed to,” Yang said.
We asked if the city had investigated whether employees had stolen other scrap metal that was meant to be recycled.
“I think there is a bigger lesson in that; perhaps we need to look at a lot of our processes closely. Perhaps we need to have more of a check-in,” Bailey said. “Now that we know better, we definitely want to do better.”
After the audit, GCWW made changes to prevent future theft and now uses outside contractors to remove lead pipes rather than water works employees.
“We have put in procedures to measure the lead as it comes out of the ground and to record the location it came from, and then on the back end, that is correlated to the amount that is going into the dumpster,” Yang said. “The dumpsters are also being checked weekly.”
From the beginning, the city’s lead removal program has been a model for the nation, and Bailey has helped many other cities start their own programs. The city removes 2,000 underground lead pipes per year and aims to increase this number to 3,000 to comply with new federal rules that require all lead to be removed by 2037.
“They are in all 52 neighborhoods,” Bailey said. “What I want the community to know is that we are still doing good work. We are still reducing the risk of lead."
She estimated the city has removed 8,000 lead pipes and must remove an additional 31,000.
“I will say it’s disappointing that this happened. But at the same time, we are still doing the right thing for our community, so there should be no concern or worry from any of our residents in the community,” Bailey said.
