Shortage of funds and staff as federal deadlines loom

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Newburgh and Poughkeepsie flexed their industrial muscle by installing state-of-the-art water systems.

Unfortunately, state-of-the-art was lead, notes state Assembly Member Jonathan Jacobson, whose district includes both cities, as well as Beacon. "There's no such thing as a safe level of lead in the water," he said. Water contaminated with lead usually looks, smells and tastes the same, and the negative health effects of lead poisoning can take years to become apparent.

According to an analysis by the New York League of Conservation Voters Education Fund of newly available data, many lead pipes may still be in use. In Poughkeepsie, 82 percent of the pipes that connect mains to individual buildings are lead, the highest rate in the state. Beacon is in better shape, with only two service lines confirmed as lead, and only 13 in Putnam County. But the status of 45 percent of Beacon's lines, and 41 percent of Putnam's, is unknown.

The data was released because of a federal law passed during the Biden administration that required municipalities to submit water-line inventories to the Environmental Protection Agency by October 2024. By October 2027, municipalities must confirm which lines are lead. By 2037, according to the law, every lead line in the country must be replaced. The EPA estimates there are about 500,000 lead service lines in New York state.

Jacobson notes that, to meet the 2037 deadline, 41,000 pipes will need to be replaced, on average, each year, at an estimated cost of $7,000 to $12,000 each. While state and federal funding is available, it doesn't seem to be reaching the communities that need it most. "The state has to take this seriously," said Jacobson.

Mapping the problem

Lead has a lot going for it. It's flexible and durable, making it an ideal candidate for service lines that must wind their way from street mains to homes.

But in the mid-20th century, scientists began to sound alarms about lead, linking neighborhoods with high levels in the water to ills ranging from higher dropout and violent crime rates to developmental disorders and birth defects. Municipalities began adding chemicals to water to keep lead from leaching into the supply. But getting the mix right requires monitoring, as Flint, Michigan, found to its peril when in 2014 it switched its drinking water source from Lake Huron to the Flint River.

The river water was more acidic, but the city didn't adjust. That error, along with many other failures, led to 100,000 Flint residents being exposed to water with lead levels several times higher than the federal limits. A national outcry over the crisis prompted the federal legislation to remove all lead service lines. In 2021, Congress included five years of funding in its Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

Josh Klainberg of the New York League of Conservation Voters notes that, while other environmental regulations have come under fire from the Trump administration, the lead rules have so far proved the exception. "This is a very popular program," he said. "The money is going out to red states and blue states."

While every state must inventory lead lines, the federal law doesn't require them to share the information with the public. New York passed its own disclosure law, but says it will take several years to turn the data into an interactive map.

The NYLCV decided to make its own. "We figured we could do better," said Klainberg. "This is letting folks know what's going on — not just within their household, because they should get notification of that from their local water system — but within the community." (You can browse the map at dub.sh/lead-lines.)

Beacon had a similar idea. Its lead-line map can be found at bit.ly/BeaconLead, although Ed Balicki, the superintendent of water and sewer, said it's due for an update. The city has data to add because of an unlikely ally: the pandemic.

The funding pipe...