ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Thousands of water service lines across the state are made from the original infrastructure, at times, dating back 100 years. With infrastructure developments throughout the years, the state has passed a bipartisan bill to replace service lines made with lead pipes.
“Most of the lead services that we are replacing are 100 years or more old. Actually, the reason they got used 100 years ago is because they last a very long time. So it was a good material from that perspective, but, from a public health perspective, not so good,” said David Rowley, the manager of water production for the Rochester Bureau of Water.
“This if it's hooked to a lead line then it would contain lead. That's why we're going to go after and replace. So for those who are getting an inside that's the reason,” said Patrick Barry, city of Rochester’s field engineer.
There has been $20 million allocated for the repairs across the state. The funding comes from New York’s Clean Water Infrastructure Act of 2017, which amended public health law to require the State Department of Health to implement a Lead Service Line Replacement Program (LSLRP). Rochester has replaced about two-thirds of its lead service lines so far, with goals for complete repairs by 2030.
“We felt like it was time for us to do better. And what came out of that was our lead service line replacement goal of removing them all by 2030, as well as another project that we're doing to improve our water treatment, to minimize the way lead, can get into drinking water,” Rowley explained. “When we started this, back in actually 2018, when we started removing lead services, we had about 24,000 lead-containing services. So we've done a lot in the last few years, but we still have a long way to go."
Rowley says Rochester has about 68,000 service lines, and since taking action in 2018, they’re down to roughly 15,000 to go.
“Every six months, we have to take over 100 samples throughout our distribution system. And to comply with regulations, 90% of those samples have to be below the 15 part per billion action level. The last round of samples that we did, the first six months of this year, all 105 samples, we collected were below the 15 parts per billion action level. But again, if you're not sure, touch base with us and we will do a lead test for free,” Rowley added.
However, it’s not without some hard work from city contractors. Each project typically requires workers to dig around four to five feet into the ground to reach the water mains.
“So every time we install a new one, a new service, we also install a new shut off as well,” Barry explained. “They'll shut these off. They cut the lead and they put a brand new tap on the water main for each service. So we're not reusing any of these taps. Everything's brand new.”
“We try to be as trench-less as possible, so they'll excavate by that shut-off valve, usually around the sidewalk area in this tree line, and then verify what the pipe materials are on both sides. Once we verify that there's a lead container material, we'll go ahead and excavate out in the street,” said Nicholas Wynn, an engineer for the Rochester Bureau of Water.
Wynn has been responsible for designed and managing the city’s lead service projects. The city is prioritizing higher-populated and higher-demand areas of the city to be most efficient with the team’s resources for each project.
“There they're pretty much all evenly spread throughout the city. With our projects, we try to go quadrant by quadrant, like they've mentioned we have about 15,000 more services to do. We just try to go quadrant by quadrant with different projects and try to go evenly throughout. We’re mostly targeting our disadvantaged neighborhoods. So we have areas laid out from the state of where there's, environmental justice areas, and we try to go after those neighborhoods, with this funding," Wynn said.
He says each project can cost around $8,000, take between four and eight hours and, at times, requires some help from the residents to determine if their private lines also need replacements.
“It's usually relatively quick. They can be off a street within, two weeks, maybe three weeks, depending on how many services are actually found on that street,” Wynn explained. “We have great records for that portion that's out in the road. We can put together competitive bids for those portions. We don't necessarily have great records for that private side portion, so it's tougher to put, that bid package together for contractors. But we're asking homeowners to verify their pipe material in the basement and try to help us out with our inventory on that.”
The crew says homeowners can be accustomed to the signs they may need a replacement.
“This is a bare steel pipe. There's no liner in these. There's no protective coating. So, when the water gets in there, it's sitting, starts to rot. And when it rots, it grows, the galvanized shrinks, so it shrinks the inside diameter pipe. So a lot of people have water pressure issues. And then when we replace it, they're kind of amazing how much better than this,” Barry explained. “The actual total volume getting up into the house is much greater. So the pressure always stays the same, but the actual volume, the people say they can't run the dishwasher and take a shower at the same time. And that'll eliminate the problem and replace this line.”
“My house, I purchased it, it was built in 1924. And a lot of original, of course, original woodwork and all that, but as far as the original guts of the house, so it’s nice to get everything new so we don’t have any problems,” Rochester resident Lynn DiSabato said. “Clean water and better water pressure. So you can run the dishwasher, you can take a shower, you can wash the car and you have great waterlines.”
“It’s great. I think it’s about time. You know, we’ve had lead pipes forever, and so it’s really great that we finally got those fixed. And it’s a great day when government can actually pass a bipartisan infrastructure bill. And agree to that and money comes out and work actually gets done,” said Dan Bell, another Rochester resident. “Once I knew what they were doing and it's just a great it's a great thing. It's a little inconvenient, you know, but they've been really good about, you know, asking if we have to move our cars or anything like that. So it's been, it hasn't been a real problem.“
“Usually very thankful afterward. It's just about learning what that process entails. Once they kind of get some background information on it, it's a lot easier to try to work with them. And like we said, there's no safe amount of lead. So once they hear, we're replacing the lead service, they're pretty, pretty happy to work with us,” Wynn said.
“Lead levels will vary depending on your water use patterns where you live in the city. We've tested homes where one home had no detectable levels of lead, but the one next door did,” Rowley explained. “What we're asking folks to do is pop down into their basements and take a look at the pipe coming into their basement from the city that brings their water and see what material it is, and then let us know what that is."
He says cityofrochester.gov/drinkingwatersafety is another resource for residents to determine if their water is safe.
“We want to make sure that we're doing the best that we can for our customers to provide them with the highest quality drinking water possible,” Rowley explained.
“Free is good and programs are out there, and if you’re a city resident, this is awesome,” DiSabato smiled and said.