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<\/p>\nThe state\u2019s piecemeal approach to funding lead pipe replacement means the safety of your drinking water may depend on your ZIP code.<\/p>\n
By Amudalat Ajasa \/ New York Focus<\/p>\n
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A lead water pipe during a replacement. Photo: Amudalat Ajasa \/ New York Focus.<\/p>\n
This story originally appeared in New York Focus<\/a>, a nonprofit news publication investigating power in New York. Sign up for their newsletter here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Barbara Deyounge-Ezell and her husband worked overtime and saved carefully for nearly four years to afford a home of their own.<\/p>\n The day they toured a brick Tudor-style home with rust-colored gables and high ceilings in St. Albans, Queens, she knew immediately that it was theirs.<\/p>\n That feeling of euphoria lasted for 40 years,\u00a0until she received a letter in 2024 from\u00a0New York City\u2019s Department of Environmental Protection: \u201cOur records indicate that your water service line is made of lead,\u201d read the letter, which was reviewed by New York Focus. It said homeowners were responsible for their lead pipes and required to replace them in accordance with federal regulations.<\/p>\n The pipe may be leaching a\u00a0hazardous neurotoxin into her drinking water, but replacing it would cost more than\u00a0$10,000, she later found.\u00a0And as a retired senior now living alone on a fixed income, she simply can\u2019t afford it.<\/p>\n Last week, New York City\u00a0announced<\/a> that it had received its fourth allotment of $24 million from the federal government to replace lead service pipes, which carry water into homes. To date, it\u2019s received a total of over $143 million from a combination of federal grants and loans and state funding. With that, the city said it should be able to remove up to 7,000 lead serve lines on private properties in low-income and highly polluted neighborhoods. But Deyounge-Ezell\u2019s home is not one of them.<\/p>\n Under a\u00a02024<\/a> Biden-era federal rule, all of the country\u2019s lead pipes must be replaced by\u00a02037.\u00a0The Environmental Protection Agency\u00a0projects<\/a> that New York state, home to some of the oldest housing stock in the country, will need to replace\u00a0nearly 385,000 lead service lines \u2014 the third-highest concentration among all states, after Illinois and Ohio.\u00a0The rule set a deadline and some parameters, but left states to figure out the details \u2014 and did not require water utilities to cover the full cost of replacement.<\/p>\n The federal government pays for the majority of lead pipe replacement through a yearly allotment to the state, which then determines which municipalities receive that funding and how much.\u00a0So far, New York state has received $633 million in grants and loans through the federal fund and chipped in $258 million of its own money to pay off the loan portion.<\/p>\n The design of the federal law has left \u201cintentional policy gaps that state and localities need to fill,\u201d said\u00a0Joshua Klainberg, senior vice president at\u00a0New York League of Conservation Voters Education Fund,\u00a0an environmental advocacy group that created a detailed\u00a0map<\/a> using state data to track the presence of lead pipes.<\/p>\n But\u00a0New York doesn\u2019t have a statewide standard for how cities should approach lead pipe replacement.<\/p>\n So decisions about how the pipes are replaced and who bears the cost vary drastically depending on where residents live.\u00a0New York City, like some localities across the state, does not pay to replace residents\u2019 lead service lines except in limited instances. About 350 miles north of Deyounge-Ezell\u2019s home in Queens, the city of Rochester has committed to doing full service line replacement at no cost to homeowners by 2030.<\/p>\n New York Focus spoke with officials from municipalities across the state \u2014 ranging from small villages to large cities \u2014 and found that the jigsawed approach has led to uneven outcomes, with some residents being offered lead-free drinking water at no cost to homeowners and others facing a choice between steep bills or potentially contaminated water.<\/p>\n There is no safe level of exposure to lead, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.\u00a0It can inflict irreparable damage on children, causing developmental delays, behavioral problems, and difficulty learning. In adults, exposure can cause brain and kidney damage and lead to cancer, heart disease, increased blood pressure, and stroke.<\/p>\n Drinking water remains one of the most significant sources of lead exposure in New York.<\/p>\n \u201cSafe drinking water shouldn\u2019t depend on your ZIP code or your ability to write a $5,000 or $10,000 check,\u201d said\u00a0Assemblymember Amy Paulin,\u00a0who sponsored a\u00a0bill<\/a> this legislative session that would require water utilities to replace all lead pipes at no cost to the homeowner, ridding the state of its patchwork system.<\/p>\n \u201cUltimately, this bill is about treating lead service line replacement as a public health responsibility, not an individual homeowner\u2019s responsibility,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n The bill made it through committee in both the Senate and Assembly but never made it to the floor.<\/p>\n The question of who owns different parts of the lead service line \u2014 and who is responsible for paying for its removal \u2014 is central to the lead pipe debate.<\/p>\n Water<\/a> utilities sued the Biden administration after it finalized its lead pipe replacement rule, arguing that the 2037 timeline was not feasible, costs were steep, and that they did not have authority over pipes under private property. The Trump administration upheld the mandate this spring.<\/p>\n Federal law requires that any replacement project includes the entire service line, both the public and private portion, all the way up to the home. Graphic: Leor Stylar \/ New York Focus.<\/p>\n In many cases, the lead service line is divided up into two sides: the public side, which runs from the water main to the curb, and the private side, which runs from the curb into the home. Some cities have decided to replace only the public side, a move\u00a0many experts and\u00a0scientists<\/a> fear could cause lead concentrations to spike because it can disturb and shake small lead particles loose on the private side. Those sorts of partial replacements don\u2019t count toward federal reduction targets, either.<\/p>\n \u201cResponsibility for addressing this patchwork is squarely on the shoulders of the water utilities who created the problem in the first place,\u201d\u00a0said Erik Olson, senior strategic director for health at the Natural Resources Defense Council, which has defended the Biden policy.<\/p>\n The New York Section of the American Water Works Association, which represents water utilities around the state, estimates that it will cost more than $4.8 billion to replace lead pipes in the state. The group said that the high cost, restrictive timeline, and limited state guidance poses challenges for water utilities. Without more funding from states and cities, the group said the cost will trickle down to ratepayers.<\/p>\n \u201cPlacing that burden on the water systems without outside funding will push water rates to unaffordable levels,\u201d said\u00a0Judy Hansen, the group\u2019s legislative consultant, in a written statement. \u201cThere must be a funding mechanism on state level to get all the lead out in a safe and cost-effective manner without driving up rates.\u201d<\/p>\n The lack of guidance has left many municipalities at vastly different places in the replacement process. Some are still trying to locate where the lead pipes are. Others have begun replacement. And some have introduced plans that require homeowners to foot the bill.<\/p>\n Rochester began replacing lead pipes on the public side in 2018, years before the federal government required the full service line replacement, with its own money. Since then, the city has replaced almost 12,000 public side and over 1,600 private side lead service lines. That early start, said Rochester Director of Water Bureau Nick Considine, put it first in line for federal funding.<\/p>\n \u201cWe saw some communities try to do it without paying for the whole thing,\u201d Considine said. \u201cWe realized early that it would be an unreasonable burden to put on our customers to ask them to chip in.\u201d<\/p>\n Rochester has received approximately $150 million from federal, state, and city funding\u00a0sources, according to data from the city.\u00a0There are still almost 14,000 lead service lines on the public side, 3,000 on the private side, and nearly 15,000 unknowns on the private side.<\/p>\n If it receives the maximum award this year, Considine believes the local government will have enough funding to cover the removal of all remaining lead service lines.<\/p>\n Workers replace a lead pipe at a residence in Syracuse. Photo:\u00a0Amudalat Ajasa \/ New York Focus.<\/p>\n New York City has taken a different approach. In the city, like many places, the entire lead service line is privately owned.\u00a0In the last days of then Mayor Eric Adams\u2019s\u00a0administration, his\u00a0Department of Environmental Protection, or DEP, outlined its plans for lead pipe replacement stating the city was\u00a0not required to pay for lead pipe replacement<\/a>, officials said, and it did not intend to do so, except in specific cases where it deemed an area high-priority, water mains needed to be replaced, or it could secure outside funding.<\/p>\n The city, which has received one of the largest sums of any municipality in the state, has replaced just 900 privately owned lead service lines to date. It prioritized homes in low-income and highly polluted neighborhoods in the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queens. A city official told New York Focus that Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s administration does not plan to change the program as it stands now.<\/p>\n \u201cReplacing privately-owned lead service lines is one of my highest priorities as Commissioner, and DEP is working hard to undertake this work in environmental justice neighborhoods,\u201d said\u00a0DEP Commissioner Lisa Garcia in a statement to New York Focus.<\/p>\n Subscribe to our free weekly newsletters<\/p>\n<\/p>\n But for many New York City homeowners like Deyounge-Ezell, whose home falls outside the priority areas, the city\u2019s program offers little relief.<\/p>\n \u201cEverybody becomes disadvantaged when there\u2019s lead in your drinking water,\u201d Deyounge-Ezell said. \u201c Who\u2019s to say which area is more deprived than another area?\u201d<\/p>\n There are still an estimated\u00a04 million lead pipes<\/a> across the country, according to the Trump administration, and the\u00a0status<\/a> of roughly 22 million are still unknown. New York has identified\u00a0251,000 lead service lines<\/a>. The material of nearly 950,000 lines is still unknown.<\/p>\n Erin Clary, a spokeswoman for\u00a0the\u00a0state\u2019s Department of Health, which co-administers federal and state funding for lead pipe replacement,\u00a0said\u00a0neither the state nor local government can legally require private homeowners to replace the portions of the water lines they own.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile the Department encourages all landowners whose properties contain lead service lines to allow replacement of those lines, no enforcement actions can be taken against them for failing to do so,\u201d Clary said in a statement to New York Focus. The agency did not respond to questions about whether it needs a broader, statewide approach to lead pipe replacements.<\/p>\n Clary said the state will move forward with new funding opportunities to help more communities identify and replace lead service lines.<\/p>\n \u201cThese continued investments reflect New York\u2019s commitment to protect our neighborhoods and provide peace of mind for families across the state, one glass of water at a time,\u201d\u00a0Clary said.<\/p>\n Advocates and lawmakers have said it\u2019s unclear whether the state will be able to eradicate its lead infrastructure without a statewide solution\u00a0outlining who pays for lead pipe replacements.\u00a0For\u00a0Rob Hayes, senior director of clean water for Environmental Advocates NY, the clearest and most equitable answer is water utilities.<\/p>\n \u201cThe solution is simple: Governor Hochul and the State Legislature should enact the Lead Pipe Replacement Act, which will ensure that New Yorkers unlucky enough to have a lead pipe receive a replacement at no direct cost to them,\u201d Hayes said in a statement.<\/p>\n Considine\u00a0of Rochester said the city\u2019s success came down to their decision to act before it was required.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ll do it even if we\u2019re not required to because it\u2019s the right thing,\u201d Considine said. \u201cIf the state makes funding available so that this is not an unfunded mandate, then other communities will be able to do what Rochester has been able to do.\u201d<\/p>\n Back in Queens, Deyounge-Ezell wonders whether her situation would be different had she lived somewhere else. Would her pipes already be replaced? Would that have been done at no cost?<\/p>\n Instead, she runs the tap water in her kitchen \u2014 which she\u2019s always preferred to bottled water \u2014 through her filter and hopes it\u2019s enough.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t plan on leaving because I can\u2019t,\u201d Deyounge-Ezell said. \u201cIt would just be too expensive to leave. It\u2019s cheaper for me to stay.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\tposted 13 hours ago – September 18, 2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The state\u2019s piecemeal approach to funding lead pipe replacement means the safety of your drinking water may depend…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":350869,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[6119,9,11,10,49,51,50],"class_list":["post-350868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-lead-poisoning","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=350868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350868\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/350869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=350868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=350868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=350868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789789112_801_Disinformation-Event-Graphics-IP-article.png\"\/)
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