New York State has awarded more than $130 million in grants to communities working to identify and replace lead service lines, including $14 million for projects in Queens, Brooklyn and Staten Island.
Gov. Kathy Hochul announced the funding Sept. 17 through the state’s Lead Infrastructure Forgiveness and Transformation program, also known as LIFT.
The grants will support lead service line inventories and replacement projects backed by federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act funding. The program is intended to reduce the amount of project costs that municipalities and local water customers would otherwise have to cover through loans.
“Our communities shouldn’t have to choose between protecting their drinking water and taking on crushing debt,” Governor Hochul said. “Every family deserves clean, safe drinking water at a cost they can afford and these grants will help us make that goal a reality.”
Under LIFT, state grants can repay the loan portion of qualifying funding packages after projects are completed.
For Brooklyn, the funding is part of a broader New York City effort to address aging water infrastructure and potential sources of lead exposure. Lead service lines connect individual properties to public water mains and can allow lead to enter drinking water when plumbing corrodes.
The state is prioritizing communities based on income and poverty measures, including areas where median household income is below 80 percent of the regionally adjusted statewide median or where the local poverty rate is above the statewide rate.
Other recipients include Buffalo, Rochester, Poughkeepsie, Port Jervis, Troy, Kingston and Albany. Rochester and Poughkeepsie each received $14 million, while Port Jervis received about $13.4 million and Buffalo received about $11.8 million.
The next step is for participating communities to carry out inventories and replacement projects. New York says it has awarded more than $600 million in federal funding for lead service line inventory and replacement since 2022, including grants and loans.
The latest LIFT awards bring the state’s total loan-forgiveness commitments through the program to more than $290 million since its launch in 2024.
