Lackawanna, N.Y. (WBEN) - U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer was in Lackawanna on Monday to discuss his continued efforts in ensuring dangerous lead piping gets removed from service lines for safer and cleaner drinking water.
Schumer's office highlights that Erie County alone has a backlog of over 12,000 lead pipes, and now is the time for communities to tap into the investments Schumer helped champion via the Bipartisan Infrastructure and Jobs Law, $129 million of which is going directly to New York State.
"Frankly speaking, lead is a poison," said the Senator whilst holding an old lead pipe. “No amount of lead is safe for children and families in Western New York. Buffalo and Erie County have some of the oldest water systems in the country, along with tens of thousands of lead pipes still in use, and we need to replace these sooner rather than later."
In addition, the Senator also notes he is looking to secure an addition $5 million grant for Erie County to ensure that no more lead pipes remain.
“For decades, I have been one of the loudest voices in the room on the importance of eliminating lead pipes from our communities. I am fighting at all levels to help Western New York get the federal support they need to replace lead pipes, and am pushing future funding opportunities, including the up to $5 million in federal funding which was just applied for, to accelerate removal of lead service lines to homes across underserved areas of the county. I will not stop fighting until there are no more lead pipes in Erie County and New York State.”
The Environment Protection Agency continues to revise the Lead and Copper Rule, which outline certain requirements that must be met by public water systems starting on Oct. 16, 2024 as outlined in the Lead and Copper Improvement (LCRI) proposal. These requirements include the initial service line inventory, notification to persons served of known or potential lead service line, Tier 1 public notification of a lead action level exceedance, and associated reporting requirements.
"We are presently conducting a pipe loop study where we harvested lead service lines from the authority's distribution system. They're being used to test the impacts and water quality parameters or any changes in corrosion control methods that we would utilize moving forward. But we all recognize there are treatment methods out there in place to control lead release, but the only sure way to protect public health is to remove lead service lines, which is the next step in our process," notes Leonard Kowalski, Erie County Water Authority's Executive Engineer.