“It’s not rocket science,” Joan Matthews, a senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, told City Limits. “We know where the problem lies. We know what to do. And now we need our local government officials to make it happen.”
Jean Marie Evely
Editor’s note: This story has been updated from its original publication to include commentary from the city’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP).
Up to 21 percent of New Yorkers may get their water from lead pipes, according to new estimates released Tuesday by the New York City Coalition to End Lead Poisoning (NYCCELP). The New York City Coalition to End Lead Poisoning (NYCCELP) is asking the city to replace all lead pipes at no cost within the next decade.
Three environmental organizations — Earthjustice, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the New York League of Conservation Voters Education Fund (NYLCVEF) — collaborated on the report, which called on the city council and the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to take strong action to address the issue.
“It’s not rocket science,” Joan Matthews, a senior attorney for the NRDC, told City Limits. “We know where the problem lies. We know what to do. And now we need our local government officials to make it happen.”
According to the report, the City of New York is particularly well-positioned for this project, having already collected the necessary data on its water supply lines, which connect the city’s water mains to apartment buildings. In 2019, the City Council enacted Municipal Law 65, which required the DEP to create an inventory of each utility line and the material from which it was made. DEP must update the data twice a year and publish it both as a set and as an interactive map.
In February, the DEP reported that 59 percent of New York City’s water supply lines are not made of lead. Of the remaining 41 percent, the DEP identified 16 percent as lead and 26 percent as possibly lead, meaning there are either no records or conflicting records of the pipes’ material.
By matching the home addresses of possible and confirmed leading utilities to consumer and voter databases, the NYCCELP report concluded that at least 318,812 households receive water from leading utilities, a number that could be as high as 902,974 depending on which households have uncertain records. That means up to 1,845,119 people in the city can drink water from a lead pipe.
Though lead plumbing has been banned from homes for decades, it can still be present in the pipes and fixtures of older homes and buildings, according to the DEP.
“We want people to understand that this isn’t ultimately an obscure number of properties,” said Joshua Klainberg, NYLCVEF senior vice president. “Through this analysis, we say that one in five New Yorkers drinks water from a supply line that contains or may contain lead.”
The report also breaks down the data by neighborhood, listing Port Richmond, East Harlem, Coney Island – Sheepshead Bay, Jamaica and Willowbrook as the five communities with the highest rates of leading utility lines.
It then calls on the city council to implement a replacement program for all of its leading utility lines and support the DEP. It notes that federal legislation — particularly the US Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) lead and copper rule — has failed to keep the public safe.
“The rule is not designed to do this, and therefore does not provide complete protection for individuals from exposure to lead in their drinking water,” the report said. “It’s also reactive and scientifically unsound, rarely requiring replacement of lead pipes – the best available solution for reducing lead levels in drinking water – and misinforming the public.”
For many potential contaminants in drinking water, the EPA sets a Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL). When the level of contaminants in a water system exceeds the MCL, the system must immediately take corrective action to bring the contaminant levels below the specified limit.
READ MORE: How New York renters can test their drinking water
However, the EPA has not assigned an MCL for lead. Instead, the Lead and Copper Rule requires water systems to sample a number of their sites, determine if more than 10 percent of the sampled sites have lead levels of 15 parts per billion (ppb) or greater, and if so, take corrective action across the system. If less than 10 percent of the samples have lead levels below 15 ppb, no action is required—even if 9 percent have 1,000 ppb or other notably high lead levels.
The report also found corrective measures – which include anti-corrosion treatments and public education, and occasionally lead pipe replacements – to be inadequate. As long as corrective action is taken, water systems remain in compliance with the Lead and Copper Rule, regardless of whether they are successful in reducing lead levels in their water.
“The federal rule is pretty complicated… but it doesn’t do anything. It’s just complicated steps that people can’t really understand, and then they assume they’re going to be protected,” said Suzanne Novack, a senior counsel for Earthjustice.
The report also emphasizes the need for a mandatory, comprehensive program versus voluntary or partial replacement programs, which it says would be inefficient and potentially harmful to residents.
It examines Newark, New Jersey as a case study and identifies its approach as a model for New York City. In 2019, Newark passed an ordinance requiring the replacement of all main utility lines and fully covering construction costs. It included specific provisions that NYCCELP said New York should consider when creating its policies.
For example, Newark residents—and not just property owners—could agree to swap service lines so landlords don’t delay or hinder construction. Another provision required property owners to provide certificates of compliance with the Code when selling or transferring their property. Less than three years after the introduction, the city had replaced its 23,000 known leading utilities.
But New York City has about 135,000 lines that need replacing, which the city estimates would cost about $2 billion.
The report puts that price at an estimated $1.35 billion. She is urging the city council to act immediately, emphasizing the record amount of funding currently available. For example, grants and loans offered to New York State under the federal Infrastructure Act could total as much as $568 million over five years. “Put simply, there is no excuse to miss this moment,” the report said.
“We only hope that through this report, the City Council recognizes the urgency and zeal to act now while we have the resources and knowledge of how to do so,” Klainberg said.
In a statement, DEP Commissioner Rohit T. Aggarwala said that while the agency agrees with the coalition’s goal of removing leading utilities from the city, “we disagree that the city and feepayers should subsidize repairs to all private homes, particularly where the homeowner can clearly pay for the repairs.”
“We urgently need federal and state funding, and this report deliberately fails to mention that New York City has been arbitrarily prevented from receiving all available funding to replace major utility lines,” Aggarwala continued, citing state regulations that bar major cities from accessing certain grants.
New York treats its water to prevent lead from dissolving in it, ensuring the city’s “day-to-day water supply is safe,” the commissioner said.
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https://citylimits.org/2023/07/19/up-to-21-of-new-yorkers-could-be-drinking-water-from-lead-plumbing-report-estimates/
