The tap water in New York City has for decades been touted by some as the best in the country. While the water quality may be a factor in producing delicious food, what happens if the pipes delivering that water are made of harmful materials?
There are an estimated 124,197 lead water service lines in New York City.
“Roughly 30% of pipes delivering water are either confirmed lead or possible lead,” said Josh Klainberg the Senior Vice President of the NY League of Conservation Voters. “That roughly translates by our estimates to one in 16 New Yorkers. It’s a little over a million people.”
Last year the League published a report featuring an interactive map that allows New Yorkers to check their address to see if their building has lead service lines. In Greenwich Village and SoHo, the map lists 624 confirmed lead service lines and 879 possible. Lead pipes are about 2 inches in diameter so they were not typically used for larger apartment complexes. There may be more lead pipes in the Village than in other parts of Manhattan because the buildings are much older and smaller.
The history of lead pipes in New York City can be traced back to when the first water system was built.
“In terms of paint and pipes this was a self-inflicted wound,” Klainberg said. “There was literally a lead industry association that was doing all sorts of PR about how lead was fine and makes the product even better and stronger.”
When the city’s population boomed in the late 18th century there was more emphasis on providing clean drinking water to individual properties instead of having public drinking sources like wells. At the time lead piping was considered a quick, cheap way to connect properties to the larger drinking lines.
“What’s ironic and frustrating is that cities that had water systems prior to New York City like Boston and London had ample negative experiences with the usage of lead,” Klainberg said. “Even one of the engineers at the time was advocating against lead pipes because they knew of all the dangers.”
From 1858 to 1961 lead service lines were allowed to be used in New York City. It was even briefly mandated between 1911 and 1936 that all connections to water mains had to be made with lead pipes.
Ingesting lead has been linked to health conditions like cardiovascular and kidney damage in adults. Children who ingest lead can experience cognitive and behavioral problems, like learning difficulties, lower IQ, tantrums and reduced attention span.
“It goes everywhere in your body, it goes into every cell and it causes toxicity in every location,” said Doctor Morri Markowitz, Director of the Lead Poisoning Prevention and Treatment Program at the Montefiore Children’s Hospital. “We focus on the brain in young kids, but it isn’t limited to that organ.”
“With chronic ingestion, the lead that you don’t get rid of in the soft tissue, it’s really accumulating in your bones,” Markowitz said. “If anything causes the reabsorption of bone, the lead is going to come out.”
New York City banned the use of lead service lines in 1961 and a federal ban was issued in 1986. The Safe Water Drinking Act passed in 1974 permitted the Environmental Protection Agency to set national standards for public drinking water.
In October of 2024, the Biden Administration released $2.6 billion to help states fund replacement programs as the latest installment of $15 billion set aside as part of a 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law.
New York State will receive more than $500 million from the federal government by 2026 to complete lead service line replacement programs. Governor Kathy Hochul said the state would provide an additional $90 million towards lead pipe replacement programs in 11 cities, including New York City, as part of the 2024 budget.
However, there is still a huge funding gap for cities. The answer of who’s responsible to foot the remainder of the bill is still a bit murky.
A pre-pandemic report published by the EPA said it costs $5,000 on average to replace a single line. Replacing all the confirmed and suspected pipes in the city comes to a staggering $1.25 billion.
“We only have a down payment for like 6% of the project,” Klainberg said. “The fight always comes up as to who should pay for this. Lead is here only because of policies that permitted it, encouraged it, and required it at times. Our position is that it should be the responsibility of the public water supplier, in this case, the city of New York, to take responsibility for replacing the pipes at no charge to the customer.”
Councilmember Erik Bottcher, who represents the West Village, said the matter of replacing lead service lines is not just a matter of public health, but a commitment to our future.
Great article. And scary. So much focus on testing for and removing lead paint at considerable cost to landlords, and all the while children are being harmed by drinking tap water!