Residents call for more urgency by Syracuse officials in addressing lead in drinking water

Syracuse, N.Y. — Do more.
That was the common theme expressed by a stream of residents who packed Syracuse City Hall’s common council chambers Thursday night to discuss lead levels in the city’s drinking water.
The council’s Public Works Committee organized a town-hall style meeting that included a presentation from Mayor Ben Walsh’s administration on the city’s response to testing earlier this year that showed a dramatic spike exceeding the federal limit for lead in public water.
City officials told the roughly 100 people in the room they remain convinced testing from the first half of 2024 was not accurate because samples were erroneously drawn from outside spigots and hoses. Follow-up testing in the second half of the year in which lead levels fell back below action levels pointed them to the conclusion that the earlier results were an outlier.
“I am absolutely confident in our water,” said Water Commissioner Robert Brandt, who explained that the city has for many years been treating drinking water with orthophosphate, an additive that limits leaching from pipes. That treatment was not done in Flint, Michigan, where a notorious lead-contaminated water crisis emerged a decade ago.
Lead exposure can cause a wide range of health problems, notably significant learning and behavioral challenges for young children. Even though the federal limit for lead in water is currently 15 parts per billion, experts say no amount of lead is safe.
One of the most effective steps residents can take if they have lead pipes, Brandt said, is to run water out of the tap for a short period of time — he suggested until it becomes colder — before using it to drink or cook with. The longer water sits in pipes, the more lead it’s likely to have, and hot water out of the tap is also more prone to cause leaching from pipes.
Brandt also said he understand why residents are fearful. The water department has set up a dedicated hotline at (315) 448-8354 for people who have questions or concerns, along with a dedicated email account at [email protected].
Out of an abundance of caution, the city is working with Onondaga County Health Department officials to order 6,000 filters designed to remove any lead. A plan is being finalized to distribute those for free to homes with at-risk residents, which include children under 6 years old and pregnant women.
They’re also developing a more aggressive plan to remove the main culprit of any lead levels in city water: service lines that connect from water mains to the meters inside homes. Syracuse will replace 3,000 of the estimated 14,000 lead service lines next year, and work to line up state, federal and local funding so all lines are replaced within five years. That would be five years ahead of the federal Environmental Protection Agency mandate for all municipalities to remove all lead service lines within a decade.
After about 45 minutes of presentation and questions from councilors, residents got their chance to speak. Many expressed skepticism of the city’s assertion that the test results from earlier in the year were an outlier.
“That doesn’t mean that dataset is not significant,” said Kiara Van Brackle. “It should mean that there is natural deviant.”
Several speakers called on the city to pursue a state of emergency from the state or federal government that could free up more funding to replace lead service lines faster. That repeats a call from several local activists and the Natural Resources Defense Council, a demand made as recently as two days earlier when about 50 residents and activists held a rally outside City Hall.
City officials said they’ve talked with federal and state officials about that idea, but have been told the city’s data would not support such a declaration.
Residents also urged the city to expand the water filter distribution to include all households with lead service lines, not just those with young children.
“Give us the filters and get more filters,” Rich Puchalski said. “We need to get the filters out the door, into the community and put the word out.”
Other suggestions from the public included more proactive communication in the community about potential problems with lead pipes. One person asked the city to consider safe water dispensing stations.
Syracuse recently released an EPA-required lead pipe inventory, and posted an interactive map that shows where known lead service lines existing. Thousands of properties have an unknown status, however. Generally, houses built before 1940 can have lead service lines.
City reporter Jeremy Boyer can be reached at [email protected], (315) 657-5673, Twitter or Facebook.