Will 2026 See Gains in Lead Pipe Removal in New York State?

No Safe Level of Lead

Lead is a poisonous heavy metal that can affect almost every organ and system in the human body, often with irreversible effects. Even small doses of lead exposure affect the way that we think (i.e. cognitive issues such as dropping IQ levels) and how we act (i.e., behavioral issues such as attention problems, conduct disorders, and criminality). People of all ages face health risks from lead exposure, with fetuses and young children as most susceptible to the adverse effects of lead. The Centers for Disease Control, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the World Health Organization, and the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) all state that there is no safe level of lead exposure.

Drinking water is one pathway to lead exposure. Lead can leach into drinking water from pipes and plumbing that contain lead due to a process known as corrosion, a chemical reaction between water that is not flowing for some time (i.e., several hours or overnight) and the lead-containing pipe or plumbing fixture. The chemistry of the drinking water itself (i.e., acidity or elevated pH levels) and varieties of dissolved materials in water can play a role in that reaction. Other factors include water temperature, age, and wear of the plumbing fixtures. Physical disturbances such as nearby construction or the replacement of a service line or a water main can cause the release of lead into drinking water. What makes lead exposure particularly dangerous in drinking water is that it is colorless, tasteless, and odorless. One source of lead exposure is from the water service line, the pipe that delivers water from the water main in the middle of a street to a building. 

Federal, State Governments Make a Historic Investment in Lead Pipe Removal

In October 2021, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) was passed, which provides $15 billion to states to replace lead service lines awarded annually over a five year period. This is the largest amount of funding ever invested by the federal government for this purpose. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, as the IIJA is also known, provides a supplemental appropriation for the state’s Drinking Water State Revolving Fund program to finance lead service line identification and replacement projects.  After four rounds of federal funding, New York State has received $571 million for lead service line inventory and pipe replacement projects and is likely to receive at least $700 million in total. 

Governor Hochul’s Lead Infrastructure Forgiveness and Transformation (LIFT) grant program has provided over $100 million in loan forgiveness grants to help communities pay for lead service line replacement by covering costs not fully paid for by federal grants. Cities that received forgiveness grants to date are Buffalo, Gloversville, Lockport, New York City, Ogdensburg, Oswego, Poughkeepsie, Rochester and Syracuse.

Federal Government Makes Improvements to the Lead and Copper Rule

In 1991, the federal Environmental Protection Agenda published a regulation to control lead and copper in drinking water known as the Lead and Copper Rule. The rule established a treatment technique for water systems to monitor drinking water at customer taps. 

On October 8, 2024, the federal EPA issued an updated rule—the Lead and Copper Rule Improvements—requiring more rigorous testing of drinking water and a lower lead threshold. The rule requires communities to take action to protect people from lead exposure in water,while also improving communication within communities so that families are better informed about the risk of lead in drinking water, the location of lead pipes, and plans for replacing them. 

A key part of this rule is the historic requirement for the vast majority of water systems to replace all lead service lines within 10 years starting on November 1, 2027. According to the EPA, cities like Benton Harbor, Michigan and Green Bay, Wisconsin replaced their lead service lines in less than 10 years. Other systems like Detroit, Michigan, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Denver, Colorado, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and Saint Paul, Minnesota have already started this work and are on pace to replace every lead service line within the next 10 years.

What We Know About Lead Pipes in NYS Today

In 2023, New York enacted the Lead Pipe Right to Know Act. Thanks to this law, information collected by the New York State Department of Health from water systems is published on the NYS Health Data website. This dataset includes information about New York State lead service lines, including service line materials, material identification methods, and service line installation dates.

Here are the most recent statistics from September 2025:

• There are over 3.7 million service lines delivering drinking water.
• Approximately 1.25 million of them – or more than one in three – are confirmed lead or possibly made of lead, potentially impacting upwards of 3.1 million or 15% of all New Yorkers. 
• Lead pipes are found in large and small communities, upstate and downstate. To illustrate: Cities with the highest percentage of lead service lines are in Poughkeepsie, Port Jervis, Little Falls, Mount Vernon, Oswego, Syracuse, Buffalo, Kingston, Gloversville, Rochester, New Rochelle, Utica, Johnstown, Elmira, Sherrill and New York City. 

To help educate the public, NYLCV’s Education Fund released a new interactive map that allows people to search whether the pipe delivering drinking water to their home puts them at risk for lead exposure. To view this map, visit: www.nylcvef.org/lead

What is NYS Doing to Address Lead Pipe Identification and Removal?

There currently three different efforts under consideration in Albany to address this issue:

1. Helping water systems to find lead pipes faster: 

With a forthcoming U.S. Environmental Protection Agency mandate commencing in 2027 to replace all lead pipes nationwide within a decade, it is critical that New York’s water systems have the most accurate inventory as soon as possible in order to line up the materials, labor, and funding needed to achieve 100% lead pipe replacement quickly, efficiently, equitably, and cost-effectively. Most water systems around the country do not know the material of every service line in their distribution systems and collecting that information should not be difficult for water systems to obtain. In most cases, customers will cooperate with their local water system, granting consent to access to their property to perform a free visual inspection to determine the presence of a lead service line. As experienced in communities around the country trying to address the lead pipe issue, such as in Newark, New Jersey, water systems will inevitably encounter cases where the customer will be unresponsive or uncooperative—which could significantly delay this process to protect the public health.

There’s a bill currently in the state legislature, S. 9345 / A. 10311 (Rivera / Paulin), that would ensure that water customers or non-owner adult occupants of real property respond to a request by covered water systems serving water to the property to grant access for free water service line inspections within the property for the purpose of completing lead service line inventories. 

This bill, which is known as the “Find Lead Pipes Faster Act,” creates a proactive, commonsense approach to this concern by setting up a reasonable and timely process for collecting consent to inspect the service line from unresponsive, uncooperative ,customers or non-owner occupants.

2. Ensure that all water systems are providing a ‘gold standard’ approach to lead service line removal.

It is estimated that New York State has at least 285,000 lead pipes that are still in use, silently contaminating drinking water and putting families at risk. By November 1, 2027, all water systems across the country are required under a federal mandate to submit their plans to the state for replacing all of the lead service lines in their system within 10 years by 2037. Unfortunately, New York State is not prepared to meet this mandate as efforts by water systems to replace lead pipes are all over the map:

• Some municipalities have already begun some replacement work while many are still struggling to figure out where the lead pipes are. 
• Some communities are working in partnership with homeowners to reduce the replacement cost, while others are proposing to burden homeowners with the full bill.
• Some water systems are using controversial plastic piping for their replacements while others are using copper.
• Some replacement costs are either so high or so low, calling into question whether the work was done cost-efficiently or even at all.

It is critical for New York State to create a “gold standard” plan for lead pipe removal that ensures that the materials and labor used by public water systems statewide are of the highest quality. The process that they follow for replacement is quick, efficient, equitable, and cost-effective across every zip code.

The Lead Pipe Replacement Act S.6892/A.7878 (Rivera / Paulin), requires water utilities to offer lead service line (LSL) replacements at no direct cost to customers, saving economically-struggling New Yorkers upwards of $10,000.  In addition, the bill provides utilities new tools to speed up LSL replacements by easing access to property, including giving utilities legal access for LSL inspection/replacement and allowing tenants to consent to a replacement when the building owner is non-responsive. The bill also requires that LSLs be replaced with copper pipes, the longest-lasting and best available material. Finally, the bill clarifies the ability of a municipality to use state and federal grants and loans, municipal bonds, water rate revenue, and other types of funding to inspect and replace lead service lines, including any portions of lead service lines located on private property or otherwise owned by a customer.

3. Provide more funding to communities to solve a problem not of their making.

While New York has led the nation in clean water infrastructure investment—investing $6 billion in the Clean Water Infrastructure Act (CWIA) since 2017—available resources have fallen far short of ongoing demand. Year after year, the CWIA is consistently and significantly oversubscribed. 

In her budget address, Governor Hochul proposed a bold five-year, $3.75 billion commitment to modernize New York’s water systems, providing $750 million annually to provide clean water. As the final budget is negotiated, both the Assembly and Senate have each advocated for $100 million to be dedicated for lead pipe replacement.

Where do we go from here?

All New Yorkers are in the same boat and deserve safe passage to lead pipe removal that is quick, cost-effective, and equitable. Simply put, this issue shouldn’t vary from zip code to zip code.

In sum and substance:  

• The science is clear; there is no safe level of lead exposure.
• The federal mandate is clear; water systems must remove all lead pipes by 2037.
• The state data is clear; New York State has a lead pipe problem.

The question remains: will the governor and state legislature help communities meet this moment by providing the policies and public dollars to solve this problem?

Editor’s note: This blog post was prepared for and appeared in the May 2025 “Municipal Matters” a publication of the New York Conference of Mayors