Audit faults NYS lead pipe replacement program

New York’s program to help municipalities replace lead drinking water service lines lacked sufficient monitoring and guidance from state regulators, leading to millions of dollars in unspent money, according to an audit by state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli released Monday.

The audit found that some municipalities — including on Long Island — never spent awarded funds, which were then returned to state coffers, leaving other towns without help. Of $3.7 million awarded to Nassau and Suffolk counties' municipalities, nearly $2 million, or more than half, was never used, according to the comptroller’s report.

"My auditors found the Department of Health could improve its oversight," DiNapoli said in a statement. With the cost of replacing the lines far exceeding available funding, "better guidance" would allow money to be spent more effectively, the comptroller added.

The state Department of Health, in a statement to Newsday, said that "lessons learned have informed current programs and were a critical part of providing technical support for lead service line inventories."

The federal government and New York State banned new lead service lines — the pipes that run from the water main in the street to each building — in 1986, but millions are still buried underground. More than 11,000 houses in Nassau County and a few in Suffolk draw their drinking water through lead lines, while more than 100,000 homes on Long Island have pipes made of "unknown" material, Newsday reported last September.

Lead is a neurotoxin that causes "serious and irreversible neurological damage" even at very low levels, according to the World Health Organization, and young children are especially vulnerable because their bodies are still developing.

A 2017 state law required the Department of Health to offer grants to municipalities to begin replacing the old lines. The department's budget of $30 million, though, was just a fraction of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's  estimate of $3.5 billion it determined was needed to replace every lead service line in the state.

Public water suppliers were required to submit an inventory by October 2024 of all the service lines in its system: which were lead, which were not and which were "unknown." 

The comptroller’s audit identified several problems with the accuracy of these records — some lines marked "unknown" had already been replaced — as well as with how the funds were distributed and spent.

Of the $30 million allocated to municipalities across 10 regions, the audit found, $7 million was never spent and was returned to the state rather than redistributed to other municipalities. Among the 10 regions, Long Island had the highest proportion of unspent funds. The report did not name the municipalities that didn't spend the money.

"Comptroller DiNapoli's report is clear: New York needs a better plan to dig up dangerous lead pipes," Robert Hayes, senior director of clean water at Environmental Advocates New York, wrote in an email to Newsday. "Our state government can't let a single dollar dedicated to getting New Yorkers lead-free drinking water go unused."

The health department said in a response attached to the audit report that it wasn’t aware that funds remained unspent until May of last year, and at that point, it was too late to send the grants elsewhere.

The Long Island municipalities that received funds also spent a higher proportion of those funds on administrative costs and investigations than most other regions. Although 83.5% of funds on the Island went to replacing pipes, seven of the 10 regions allocated a larger share, up to 98%.

The report also noted that the state’s methods of awarding funds meant that some communities with high rates of elevated lead levels in children lost out to towns with less severe rates.

The auditors recommended improved monitoring of future grants and support to help municipalities produce accurate inventories of remaining lead lines.

In its response to the comptroller's findings, the health department said the "success of these projects depends not only on how robust the Department’s guidance is but also on the public water supplier’s review and compliance."