In this blog we examine Delivering on Commitment: The 2025 NYC Lead Compliance Report, which highlights the City’s progress toward eliminating lead exposure since the launch of LeadFreeNYC in 2019, an initiative to reduce childhood lead poisoning, expand protections, and tighten safety standards. The report highlights what is working, where gaps remain, and what new strategies are needed to move faster.
The New York League of Conservation Voters Education Fund released an interactive map to help New York State residents determine if the building they live in (i.e., small apartment building or a single-family home) or visit or work (i.e., a house of worship or small office) has a drinking water service line that is or is possibly made of lead. Drinking water service lines are the pipes that carry water from the water main in the street to the inside of buildings.
Approximately 1.25 million – or more than one in three – water service lines in New York State are either made of lead or possibly made of lead, potentially impacting upwards of 3.1 million or 15% of all New Yorkers.
The use of road salt to keep streets safe during winter storms has become an urgent environmental and public health concern. While salt is effective for melting ice and preventing dangerous driving conditions worldwide, including here in New York State, its overuse has significant public health and environmental consequences, especially regarding its impact on drinking water.
Lead is a dangerous contaminant. There is no safe level of lead exposure. Children are especially vulnerable, facing increased risks of developmental delays, learning disabilities, and other serious health impacts.
Following the historic announcement by the federal Environmental Protection Agency of the Lead and Copper Rule Improvements, the New York League of Conservation Voters Education Fund, a member of the NYC Coalition to End Lead Poisoning, released an interactive map and a comprehensive report to help New York City residents determine if the building they…
New York City, trying to tackle its significant lead pipe problem, has announced it is expanding an existing program to replace lead service lines at no cost in targeted low-income and environmental justice areas of the city. Last month, Mayor Eric Adams announced a $48 million effort to replace privately-owned lead service lines in the…
The updated Lead and Copper Rules issued by the EPA also requires increased communication about the risks families face as well as more rigorous testing of drinking water and a lower threshold for communities to take action. The EPA also announced $2.6 billion in newly available drinking water infrastructure funding through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
New York City, like many cities around the country, is preparing to replace lead service lines that deliver drinking water to their constituents, an initiative proposed by the federal Environmental Protection Agency in their revisions to the 1991 Lead and Copper Rule. Understanding the history of how these lead pipes got here in the first place is critical as the New York City Council contemplates a program to remove all lead service lines. A drinking water service line is the pipe that delivers water from the water main in the middle of a street to a property. In New York City, lead service lines were permitted to be used until 1961, and as far back as 1858 until about 1936, the city not only permitted the use of lead pipes, but encouraged or specifically required it.
By Peter Aronson While a school bus’s roaring ignition and noxious gasoline smell may bring a wisp of nostalgia to some of us, it comes at a steep cost in the form of emergency room visits, school absenteeism, and an overheating planet. The state’s fiscal year 2023 budget, passed in April 2022, established New York…
