ALBANY, N.Y. -- There are an estimated 494,000 lead service lines in New York — the sixth highest number in the country.

Environmental Advocates NY Director of Clean Water Rob Hayes said it's an issue across the state disproportionately impacting low-income and minority communities.

"Many homeowners, tenants, business owners, they don't know if there's a lead pipe servicing their building and potentially putting their water at risk," Hayes said.

The Legislature passed the Lead Pipe Right To Know Act last session which would require utilities to take a comprehensive inventory of all their service lines and the state to build a centralized, easily searchable, public website.

"The reason we need it is because there is no safe level of lead in drinking water and we want to make sure we know where these pipes are so we can replace them and get rid of them," state Sen. Gustavo Rivera, D-Bronx, who sponsored the bill, said.

Hayes said if homeowners know there is lead, they can get a filtration system to ensure their safety. He and Rivera said local, state and federal governments are ultimately responsible for replacement and the data makes it easier to do so.

"Then we can actually identify incoming federal funds that are actually earmarked for getting lead service lines out of the ground. We can actually make sure they are spent more efficiently and equitably," Rivera said.

Hayes said some places in the state, like the city of Troy and New York City, already have taken similar steps at the local level.

"We haven't seen widespread impacts on the property markets in any of those communities that have done that and I don't expect that to happen should this bill be signed into law," he said.

The governor has until the end of the year to sign or veto the bill but the sooner it happens, the sooner utilities can get to work on inventories that would need to be done by October 2024. Advocates gathered Wednesday in the Capitol to draw attention to it as part of lead pipe prevention week.

"This is a fantastic time for Gov. Hochul to really show national leadership on addressing this issues and make New York state a model in public transparency about lead pipes and ultimately a model to get 100 percent of these pipes out of the ground," Hayes said.

They are also calling for the governor to include at least $100 million in her budget for pipe replacement.