By Steven Cohen, Ph.D., Director of the M.S. in Sustainability Management program, School of Professional Studies
New York City’s water supply is among the cleanest in the world. The city spends hundreds of millions of dollars each year ensuring that our upstate reservoirs are free of pollution. The water supply controlled by the city is pristine. But before New Yorkers get to drink that clean water, it leaves city property and enters private property, where the water pipes servicing their buildings are not always in great shape. Despite the city’s impressive effort, according to the Gothamist’s Rosemary Misdary:
“An estimated 30% of pipes delivering water to New York City buildings may have lead – and now there’s a map to help determine if your building is affected. The New York League of Conservation Voters created the map using Department of Environmental Protection data. It shows there are 124,197 lead pipes in the city and 571,351 lines that do not contain lead. There's also 124,917 pipes that could contain lead.”
You would think this would be a major issue in this year’s Mayoral race, and the immediate replacement of these pipes would be near the top of our political agenda. But for the most part, the issue is ignored. This week, it’s Climate Week in New York City, and we will focus on a global issue we can’t address on our own. Meanwhile, about 2 million of us are probably exposed to lead in our drinking water: an issue we could impact if we made it a priority. The City’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is aware and open about the problem, and in June 2024, DEP Commissioner Rohit Aggarwala testified before the New York City Council and presented a clear and honest appraisal of the challenge posed by lead service lines. According to the Commissioner:
“There are at least 130,000 lead service lines in New York City, and we estimate the full number is roughly 150,000. We estimate that replacing all of the lead service lines will cost about $2 billion. These service lines are privately owned; they are part of the building. Some of them are in low-income neighborhoods; some of them are in high-income neighborhoods. We have been working to identify grants and other funding to help homeowners replace lead service lines, but we do not expect ever to have full funding to pay for all of these private replacements. Further, while the Federal government has made funding available, that funding is something like one-tenth the total need across the country and New York State places limits on what we can receive. The bottom line is that while we will of course maximize external funding, we cannot expect all the funding we need to come from somewhere else.”
Since the end of May, I have served as the faculty advisor of a team of students in Columbia’s MPA in Environmental Science and Policy program studying this issue. Each year, students in our master’s program take a statute that has been proposed but not enacted and study its science and policy dimensions in the summer. In the fall semester, we build on our scientific analysis and conduct a political analysis and management simulation of the policy’s start up. The team I am working with has been studying a New York City Council bill designed to address this issue. According to my students:
“NYC Council Introduction 942: Replacement of Lead Service Lines (“the bill”) aims to provide a framework and enforcement mechanism for the city to address the environmental and public health hazard posed by lead pipes. Through mandated replacement, fines for non-compliance, subsidies for disadvantaged communities, and education, the bill aims to replace all the lead service lines in New York City within a 10−year time frame.”
The bill my students are studying is opposed by environmental justice groups and other interest groups because it requires the property owner to pay the $10,000 to $15,000 cost of replacing the pipes. Some of these properties are in low-income neighborhoods; the fear is that the cost of pipe replacements will impact the price of housing. Legislation being considered in Albany addresses that problem by requiring water utilities to pay these costs and providing the government with access to private property to install replacement pipes.
According to the estimates I’ve seen, between one million and two million New Yorkers are drinking water with lead in it. Public health scientists report that there is no safe level of exposure to lead in drinking water, and for children, the health impact on the development of a child’s brain can be devastating. While many of those exposed to this pollutant are poor (about 40%), the majority are not. I am guessing that some of those fancy pre-World War II co-ops on Park and Fifth Avenue and Central Park West have been supplied by lead water pipes. Those of you living in luxury lofts down in SoHo are also likely victims of exposure to lead in your drinking water.
The state’s proposed statutes requiring water utilities to pay the cost of replacement make much more sense to me than requiring individual property owners to pay. Under the City Council bill, 130,000-200,000 private owners would be faced with one-time costs of as much as $15,000 to replace these service lines. If the costs were borne by all water rate payers, those costs could be spread to the 800,000 buildings that pay water bills. If the costs were covered by a low-interest municipal bond and paid back over 20-30 years, the increase in each property’s water bill would be far more affordable than if 150,000 property owners had to pay the full cost immediately. Why should people without lead pipes pay to clean up those with lead pipes? Because you might visit Grandma or go to a restaurant and still end up drinking water with lead in it. This is a problem for all of us, not just an unlucky few.
In studying this issue, the Columbia students identified another issue not mentioned in either the city or state legislation. That is the problem of lead exposure during the pipe removal process. According to Columbia’s Environmental Science and Policy students:
“The lead service line replacement process, while ultimately beneficial, may pose health risks for both residents and workers during the construction phase… Some studies of lead service-line replacement consistently find that cutting, pulling, or otherwise disturbing legacy pipe generates respirable dust and resuspends contaminated soil. Both of these media readily transfer from clothing, boots, and tools to workers’ homes, placing family members, especially children, at secondary risk. Even a single day of replacement work can elevate blood-lead levels (BLLs) to 5−6 μg/dL, a range already linked to neuro-behavioral deficits and peripheral Neuropathy… Thus, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health recognizes that personal protective equipment is vital for worker safety during lead pipe replacement… When old service lines are disturbed or removed, accumulated lead scale and particles that have built up inside pipes over decades can break loose and enter household water supplies. This disturbance can cause lead levels to spike dramatically, with elevated concentrations persisting for weeks or even months after replacement.”
Therefore, the process of replacing pipes and then safely disposing of them must be approached with care, and the cost estimate of $15,000 may be lower than the costs of careful replacement and disposal. It may be that temporary water filters will be required until we can be sure the water no longer contains lead. The issue of lead contamination is not new, but the research findings on safe exposure levels have changed in recent years. It is only in the past few years that we learned that there was no safe level of exposure. New York City’s Department of Environmental Protection will send New Yorkers free kits to test their drinking water for lead. In a piece published in The City this past August, Lizzie Walsh reported that: “Requests for these resident tests surged last year to nearly 9,000, up from less than 5,000 the previous year.” In that piece, she also observed that: “More than one-third of home test kits sent in for testing by residents to the city’s environmental agency over the past decade had some level of lead — results that reflect many New Yorkers’ continued reliance on pipes containing the potent neurotoxin.”
The extent of lead contamination of New York’s drinking water is unknown, but the problem is larger than we once thought and relatively invisible to most New Yorkers. It’s an issue that deserves greater attention, and it is an example of an environmental problem that we should be able to address.
Views and opinions expressed here are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Columbia School of Professional Studies or Columbia University.
About the Program
The Columbia University M.S. in Sustainability Management program offered by the School of Professional Studies in partnership with the Climate School provides students cutting-edge policy and management tools they can use to help public and private organizations and governments address environmental impacts and risks, pollution control, and remediation to achieve sustainability. The program is customized for working professionals and is offered as both a full- and part-time course of study.
