Editor’s note: This week is National Lead Poisoning Prevention Week. This story is part of Central Current’s continued coverage of how lead poses a public health threat.
Mayor Sharon Owens announced a concerted effort from stakeholders, including the city and the county, to address and eradicate the lead poisoning crisis: Lead Big Table.
The Lead Big Table was inspired by a similar idea conceptualized by the Urban Jobs Task Force of Syracuse to help Syracuse residents have equitable access to Interstate 81 construction work . That program mandated at least 15% of the workforce to include Syracuse residents, especially from neighborhoods that were ravaged by the highway’s construction in the 1960s and was touted largely a success by advocates.
The first of the quarterly meetings took place on Monday at the Inspyre Innovation Hub in downtown Syracuse. Committees including government officials, health experts and members of community organizations came together to brainstorm ways in which they can remove lead from the community, including through outreach, education and remediation.
“That is the ultimate goal: to kick lead in its butt and get it out of our community,” Owens said.
The city’s code enforcement officers will partner with the city’s water department to expand routine inspections to include checking pipes in homes to find whether or not they have lead in them, Owens said Monday. However, this will not include testing individual outlets or water faucets.
“No other individuals are in the basements [of houses] more than code enforcement inspectors,” Owens told Central Current. “ So as they’re in the houses, adding that to the standard inspection would be to help us chronicle where lead pipes are in the city.”
Even at low levels, lead exposure can lead to nervous system damage, hearing problems, learning disabilities and more, experts have said. Children are especially vulnerable.
According to county health department data, more than 1 in 10 children tested for lead exposure in the city of Syracuse show elevated blood lead levels.
According to a 2026 study by the Rockefeller Institute of Government, nearly 77% of the service lines in Syracuse have lead in them. Outside the city, there are over 17,000 lead service lines.
While Syracuse had originally planned to replace lead pipes in five years, city officials extended the timeline to about 10 years. Syracuse.com reported that water Commissioner Robert Brandt told the Common Council that it could take over two decades to replace over 14,000 lead service lines at a pace of nearly 1,500 pipes each year.
The city of Newark has set a gold standard with their lead pipe replacement program, experts have said. After former President Joe Biden made $60 billion available for lead pipe removal and lead remediation, Newark was able to replace more than 23,000 lines in the city in only three years— ahead of its eight-year estimate.
Owens told Central Current that she is planning to speak with Mayor Ras Baraka to learn more about Newark’s model in the next few days. She also emphasized that the city must hire more than one contractor to carry out the work. She is working with the budget department to ensure they follow municipal law and announce bids to hire more contractors, Owens said.
“We’re modifying our procurement process because we have to have more than one contractor,” Owens said. “We have to, and [Newark] verified that there was no way they were able to really be able to move at the speed they did with one contractor.”
Lead in water is one of several sources of lead contamination. The county, and specifically the city of Syracuse, have issues with an aging housing stock in which lead paint and dust peels off walls, generating sources of contamination. Additionally, the city specifically has a large inventory of lead pipes that leach into the water delivered to the outlets of thousands of city homes and businesses.
“While we know that the city of Syracuse, the entire county is impacted by lead, we especially know overwhelmingly that Black and Brown communities are inundated with lead, and we hope that this big table makes that a priority,” said Lanessa Owens-Chaplin, the racial equity director at the New York Civil Liberties Union.
In January, the House of Representatives passed a series of bills that allocated more than $2 million toward lead pipe removals from hundreds of homes in Syracuse and Onondaga County: Syracuse and the Onondaga County Water Authority each received $1.1 million. Rep. John Mannion was one of the key forces alongside Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand who pushed for urgent federal aid to combat lead poisoning.
During a recent debate on News Channel 9 between candidates for New York’s 22nd Congressional District seat, Mannion and Republican candidate Kailee Buller sparred over the lead pipe removal process.
When Mannion called it a “priority,” Buller attempted to make him commit to a deadline to replace those pipes.
“What’s the deadline it’ll be done by, to help these inner city kids?” Buller asked.
Mannion blamed President Donald Trump’s rampant cuts to federal funding targeting “blue states.”
“I’m working on it, and I’m getting things done,” Mannion said. “We are an aging infrastructure, so when the president cuts dollars … it’s wrong and it’s unlawful. And I will continue to stand up to make sure this region gets the funding.”
When the debate moderators asked Buller what her deadline would be, she did not pick one.
“I need to look at the whole, full situation and where we are, but within the next few years,” she said.
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