Examples of service lines the city plans to replace. City officials presented these at a public meeting in the University Neighborhood. Credit: Eddie Velazquez | Central Current

Central Current reported this story with funding from the Health Foundation for Western and Central New York.

A new set of federal environmental regulations meant to keep water lead free could push the city of Syracuse to replace more than 17,000 lead water pipes in the next 10 years. 

Public health advocates say the effort could stop harmful effects of lead poisoning from lead paint and lead in water from compounding.  

The city plans to spend $40 million in state funds to replace more than 2,000 lead pipes over the next four years. Over the next 10 years, the city plans to replace about 5,000 pipes, about a third of what the new regulation will require. City officials doubt the feasibility of replacing the entire inventory of pipes in the timeframe determined by the new regulations. 

The new rules from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, expected to be enacted in October, aim to switch out the more than 9.2 million lead pipes servicing drinking water to households across America in the next decade.

The new regulations would also lower the threshold at which the city would have to take corrective action to reduce the levels of lead in the water. The most recent reports from the city’s department of water show the water samples would contain lead levels above the proposed threshold. The State Department of Health, deputized by the EPA under the federal Safe Drinking Water Act, could levy fines and even take legal action to compel the city to lower the lead levels in water.

Taking action, local public health advocates say, could help address the converging crises of childhood lead poisoning, historic disinvestment in neighborhoods of color, and aging infrastructure in the city.

In Syracuse, that would mean supplanting the close to 42% of city-owned pipes made out of lead with copper pipes, according to city data. 

The city would also be on the hook for creating an inventory of all the lead pipes by Oct. 16, when the EPA expects to deliver the updated rules. 

The city’s pipes, which run from water mains to sidewalks in front of city homes — also known as public service lines — degrade over time and can leak traces of lead into drinking water, city officials say. The same concerns exist for private service lines, which run from sidewalks to water meters at houses, but the city does not have an inventory of private pipes.

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Public health advocates say replacing lead service lines is just one step in addressing the lead crisis. The Onondaga County Health Department’s most recent reporting indicates that about one in every 10 children tested show elevated blood lead levels.

Dr. Travis Hobart, the director of the lead poisoning center at Upstate University Hospital said the vast majority of those cases stem from chipping lead paint in old, substandard housing. He noted, however, that focusing on all sources of potential lead exposure should be a priority.

Old lead pipes in a house often indicate poor housing conditions and the type of negligence from property owners that can lead to a child being poisoned by lead, Hobart said. 

“A child exposed to lead in the water can also be exposed to lead paint and that is going to make the level of lead in their blood higher,” Hobart said. 

The presence of lead in children’s blood, the World Health Organization says, attacks the brain and the central nervous system at high levels of exposure, leading to long-term effects such as intellectual disabilities and behavioral disorders.

“Obviously there is no safe level of lead, but the higher it goes, the more effects it can have on a child’s development,” Hobart said.

Under the new EPA rules, the city would have to replace both the public and private lead service lines in the next decade. About $2 million of the $40 million the city received from the state to replace lead service lines will go toward creating a digital inventory of all lead service lines in the city and making it available to the public.

The council also approved in March bonding for $10 million to kickstart lead service line replacement projects this year.

Awald said a full replacement of the entire network of lead pipes seems unlikely within the time allotted. 

In a July 9 interview with Central Current, he called the timeline proposed by the EPA unrealistic for municipalities with large lead service line inventories. Awald took a job in the private sector on July 12, leaving former deputy commissioner of water Robert Brandt as the interim commissioner while the city searches for a long-term replacement. Brandt sat in on the same interview.

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“That’s a big chunk of change to do such a project in such a short amount of time,” Awald said. “There’s only so much you can do at one point in time. If you try to do, say $200 million worth of replacement services in one year, that’s just not achievable.”

The city’s inventory of lead service lines is also much larger than in other communities. The prevalence of lead lines stems from the age of Syracuse’s housing stock, which was largely built before the EPA in 1986 banned the use of lead pipes on new construction. 

The EPA’s retort to concerns about feasibility has been to use case studies such as the water systems in Green Bay, Wisconsin or Newark, New Jersey, where local water authorities have been able to replace all lead service lines within 10 years. 

Awald said that the large number of lead service lines across the country could also further complicate large-scale replacement, as municipalities from all over the U.S. would be competing for state and federal funds. 

President Joe Biden’s administration has dedicated $15 billion to removing lead service lines through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law approved in 2021. There is an additional $11.7 billion in federal funding available through the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund that can be utilized for these types of projects.

As the city tries to replace lead service lines, it would also like to replace water mains to be efficient. However, that could also increase the project’s cost. This year the city expects to have replaced more than 475 lead pipes through two capital projects, both of which involve replacing aging water pumps. 

“It’s much more efficient to go in and redo the water main and all lead service lines in an area in one shot, rather than mobilizing the whole crew to do individual replacements here and there, because the cost for that is going to be three times higher,” Awald said.

One of those projects, which entails overhauling the water main on Westminster Avenue in the city’s east side, broke ground last week. Awald said JJ Lane, the company awarded the contract for the project, will replace around 150 lead service lines. The other capital project, replacement of the Mosley Pump Station between Robinson and Melrose Streets, is scheduled for the fall and will swap out about 325 lead pipes, Awald said. 

The new EPA regulations would also mandate municipalities to take remedial action on contaminated water if tests show that water samples contain more than 10 parts per billion of lead. The current threshold for action is triggered if more than 15 parts per billion of lead is found in water samples. 

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Consumer quality reports prepared by the Syracuse department of water show city water would have exceeded the updated EPA regulations for lead in potable water in each of the last three years. 

The city department of water could face fines and even legal action from the State DOH under federal law if they continuously fail to take remedial action.   

Some of the remediation steps would include more aggressive corrosion control, which the water department already deploys. The process entails adding orthophosphate to the water system, which mitigates pipe corrosion and thus prevents lead from seeping into the water. 

Awald said the city can still up the dosage of orthophosphate in the water system if the EPA finds Syracuse water samples to be out of compliance with the 10-parts-per-billion threshold. 

Despite some skepticism about the long term replacement plan, Awald said the water department is on the right track because it is taking proactive steps to replace water pipes before the regulations have been issued formally.

“I think that we will be within the tolerance level of sampling,” he noted. “Regulators will also see that we are tackling the problem ahead of time and hopefully they will look favorably on that.”

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Eddie Velazquez is a Syracuse journalist covering economic justice in the region. He is focused on stories about organized labor, and New York's housing and childhood lead poisoning crises. You can follow...