U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan visited Albany Wednesday to survey the city’s efforts to prevent lead contamination of drinking water.
According to officials, about 40 percent of homes in the City of Albany are hooked up to lead service lines.
Outside a home in the city’s West Hill neighborhood, Democratic Mayor Kathy Sheehan said the city wants to replace all such lines by 2040, and outlined the program that is offering residents reimbursement grants of up to $2,000.
“We need to ensure that landlords are providing safe drinking water and have access to ensure that they can keep their tenants safe. The $2,000 reimbursement grant is expected to reduce the entire cost of a replacement project by nearly half,” said Sheehan.
Wednesday’s press conference came a day after House Democrats approved a budget resolution to advance a $3.5 trillion infrastructure and investment plan backed by President Joe Biden called the “Build Back Better Act.” The procedural vote passed without Republican support.
At the same, the House voted to advance the Senate-approved bipartisan infrastructure deal. Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Tuesday she was committed to passing the bipartisan deal by September 27th.
Democratic Congressman Paul Tonko celebrated the votes in the House and introduced Wednesday’s guest of honor.
“We started robustly yesterday, we’re going to carry this one to the finish line, and by October I think we’re going to see great investment in infrastructure. And leading in that effort will be the forces of the EPA, the forces of the EPA guided by its new administrator, Michael S. Regan,” said Tonko.
Regan, who previously served as North Carolina’s Secretary of Environmental Quality, is the 16th person and first Black man to lead the Agency.
He said the EPA is excited about infrastructure legislation moving through Congress, and touted provisions included in the bipartisan plan related to drinking water.
“It would invest an historic $55 billion to accelerate the progress on the much need water infrastructure improvement, including removing lead service lines, addressing PFAS in our drinking water, wastewater and storm water issues, and just general infrastructure issues all across the nation.”
Regan said the EPA has programs in place to move federal funding to the states, right to communities where it’s needed most.
“We want to highlight the kinds of opportunities that are on the ground, like here in Albany, where we have leadership at the local level, we have the workforce development opportunities, and we have programs in place that we can feed resources into to create more jobs, create more water quality, and eliminate these lead service lines.”
While the grants up to $2,000 are available to all with lead service lines, Albany is also offering free water filters to anyone concerned about lead in their water or otherwise unable to pursue line replacement.
Joseph Coffey is the Commissioners of the city’s Department of Water and Water Supply.
“So right now if their water tests higher than 10 parts per billion – kind of a funny number, the current action level is currently 15 parts per billion – we’ll provide them a filter at no charge that will mitigate the lead issue. Then, homeowners, we’ll also refer to them the Albany Community Development Agency to see if they may be eligible for grant funding for the lead water service replacement,” said Coffey.
For more information visit: http://albanyny.gov/444/Lead-Drinking-Water
