After the Biden administration issued new lead cleanup rules Tuesday, New York is on the hook for at least $2.5 billion to replace toxic drinking water pipes — far more than the state has ever spent to remedy the long-standing health hazard.
The rules require nearly all drinking water utilities nationwide to replace lead pipes within a decade. Lead exposure in childhood and in the womb can cause severe cognitive damage, which has been linked to everything from decreased reading and math skills to increased crime and incarceration rates among adults.
But implementing the plan won’t be cheap. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that there are still more than 9 million drinking water lines made of lead nationwide. Each line costs an average of $5,000 to replace — an estimate that predates pandemic-era inflation — bringing the total cost to at least $45 billion. Federal funds would cover only a fraction of that. President Joe Biden announced Tuesday that the federal government would release $2.6 billion to states, the latest installment of the $15 billion to replace lead pipes authorized by the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law.
New York, which is home to the oldest housing stock in the nation, has more work to do than most of its peers. There are nearly 500,000 lead service lines in the state, according to EPA estimates. Replacing them will likely cost at least $2.5 billion.
Who will pay for the long overdue upgrades is an open question. By 2026, New York is on track to receive more than $500 million in federal infrastructure funds to spend on lead pipes. And last month, Governor Kathy Hochul announced that the state was distributing $90 million of its own to replace lead pipes in 11 cities.
That leaves a multibillion-dollar hole. If the federal or state governments don’t fill it, municipalities, water utilities, and homeowners will have to foot the bill, potentially driving up local taxes or water bills in some of the places that can least afford it, like Syracuse and Newburgh.
Rob Hayes, director of clean water for Environmental Advocates NY, celebrated the new federal regulations as “the most important step to reduce lead in drinking water in US history” — but said that New York needs to cough up more funding to help implement it.
“We don’t want water to become more unaffordable at the same time that we’re trying to make it cleaner,” Hayes said.
A spokesperson for Hochul, who will kick off next year’s budget process with her proposal in January, declined to make any commitments about water funding. Instead, the spokesperson referred back to the governor’s announcement that the state doled out $90 million.
“When it comes to New York’s water infrastructure, we’re getting the lead out,” Hochul said last month. “Keeping New Yorkers safe is my top priority — and by giving communities the support needed to replace lead service lines, we’re helping to safeguard public drinking water for generations to come.”
Municipalities, which are ultimately in charge of the pipe replacements, have jumped at the recent state and federal funding, but they may need more than is available. Every fiscal year since 2023, municipalities have applied for more than $300 million worth of projects. But each year, the state has only had a little over $100 million in federal infrastructure cash to distribute.
Homeowners, landlords, or local water utilities must make up the difference — the latter, usually, by passing on the cost to residents through higher water bills.
Some badly affected cities, like Syracuse, have sought to close the gap by taking out loans.
State Senator Rachel May, of Syracuse, has for years been pushing for the budget to include a dedicated line item to replace lead pipes. But so far, the legislature has preferred to pass a lump sum for all clean water infrastructure and let the governor divvy it up.
Assemblymember John McDonald, who represents Troy, another city long plagued by lead, has also been pushing for a dedicated budget for the task. He said the cost for the state to meet the Biden administration’s deadline is manageable. The EPA is giving water utilities three years to prepare before the 10-year countdown starts, meaning the real deadline isn’t until 2037.
“When you look at it as 2037, $2.5 billion doesn’t scare me,” he said, noting that the spending could help the state save on health and education costs down the line.
Winning the funding may only be part of the fight. Troy resident Jona Favreau started fighting for her city to replace lead pipes in 2022, after a test revealed that her then–two-year-old son had elevated levels of lead in his blood. (She was nine months pregnant with her second child at the time.)
Favreau eventually learned that Troy had been sitting on a $500,000 grant to address the issue. After she and other residents spoke up, the city government passed legislation to speed up lead pipe replacements, though the details are still being worked out. (Troy Mayor Carmella Mantello, who took office this year, told the Times Union she wants to replace all of the city’s lead pipes “within my first term.”)
McDonald, the assemblymember, said that delays by local governments explained in part why Hochul sought to cut clean water funding in last year’s budget. “One of the reasons I was hearing from certain people in the administration was that they don’t see a lot of projects getting done,” he said. (Legislators were ultimately successful in preserving the full funding.)
Clean water advocates hope that the new federal push will lend fresh urgency to the fight against lead pipes. Gabrielle Burton-Hill, a cofounder of the Newburgh Clean Water Project, said the issue has often been overshadowed by so-called forever chemicals, or PFAS, in recent years.
“Lead is still around. It has not gone away, even though we don’t talk about it a lot,” Burton-Hill said. She began sounding the alarm about lead contamination in Newburgh more than 20 years ago, when her then-toddler was diagnosed with lead poisoning so severe she was rushed to the hospital.
As of 2022, Newburgh had replaced 125 of an estimated 2,500 lead pipes. New York has given the city federal funds to complete a detailed inventory of the pipes, as a first step toward replacing them.
Hayes, of Environmental Advocates NY, said New York could get rid of its lead pipes long before Biden’s 2037 deadline if it made the effort a priority. He pointed to Newark, New Jersey, which replaced virtually all of its lead pipes — some 23,000 — in just three years. (A recent indictment charges that one contractor involved in the effort lied and left some lead pipes in the ground, but those represent only a small fraction of the total.)
Moving fast could also save the state money, Hayes said.
“Over the next 10 years, there is going to be a huge demand for workers and contractors to dig these pipes out of the ground,” he said. “The earlier the communities can start their replacements, the cheaper that it’s going to be for them.”
May, the Syracuse senator, noted that unlike many budget items, this is a one-time cost.
“You take out the lead pipe, your lead pipe isn’t going to come back,” she said.