A $10 million state water line replacement grant awarded to the city in November will now cover the costs of replacing lead-containing water connections for homeowners with the greatest financial hardship. Lockport was among eight municipalities to receive Gov. Kathy Hochul’s Lead Infrastructure Forgiveness and Transformation (LIFT) grants that pay off municipal loans taken for mandated lead service line replacement.
In October 2024, the federal Environmental Protection Agency issued the Lead and Copper Rule Improvements, which require drinking water systems across the country to identify and replace lead pipes within 10 years.
Mayor John Lombardi III and Dan Cavellari, city finance director, did not respond to a request for comment on the grant announcement. John Craig, 1st Ward alderman, said that because the lead service line project is part of a separate infrastructure funding plan, the grant will not impact the city’s 2026 budget.
To begin the project, the Common Council approved a $20 million bond resolution in August. That included a $10 million grant from the federal Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to replace the lead pipes with copper, and a $10 million, no-interest government loan.
According to Mike Marino, engineer and chief executive officer of Nussbaumer & Clarke, Inc., who is managing the long-term project, he had submitted an application for a $10 million Water Infrastructure Improvement and Intermunicipal grant to offset the loan. Marino said that the application demonstrated that, based on median income and significant need for pipe replacement, the City of Lockport was a priority area.
That application may have been used to determine the LIFT grant, Marino said, which required a community’s median household income to be less than 80% of the regionally adjusted statewide median household income; the local poverty rate to be higher than the state’s; and at least 50% of the community’s lead service line project to serve an environmental justice community.
“We definitely checked all the boxes for that,” Marino said Tuesday.
“I think it is great news because we do have a lot of lead pipes in Lockport,” said Margaret Lupo, 5th Ward alderman. “If we mandate that people change their lead water lines, they’re not going to be able to afford to. I think mostly it’s a lifeline to the homeowners. It will only improve our housing stock, too.”
Marino said this is one of a few instances when a state grant will fund something on private property.
“It’s always been a big no-no to spend public dollars on private property,” he said. ”The interesting part of this whole service line program is that they are putting the onus for service line replacement on the water utility. Even though the homeowner technically owns the service from the meter to the main, the City of Lockport needs to replace it under federal rules. It can be very costly for homeowners if the water main is on the other side of the road and you have to pay to dig up the road.”
To start determining which pipes were lead, Marino said the city mailed letters earlier in the year, asking residents to take photos of the water pipes entering their homes and send them using a QR code. Lead pipe findings were added to a map that also identified homes built or repaired in the 1930s, when lead pipes were required by construction code, Marino said.
Homes that were built after the 1970s, when lead was no longer installed, were eliminated from the map.
Marino said his team used GIS to overlay a map of the New York state environmental justice areas onto the city map of lead-line households. This determined the addresses that are the first priority for funding for line replacement, he said.
“Based on the records, we’re probably at 50% (lead pipes),” Marino said. “But before we replace any service, we would do a physical identification.”
So far, 1,300 water hookups have been identified, and Marino said the process of determining where lead pipes exist underground is far from over. There are 8,000 total water hookups in the city, he said.
Marino said resident information is still needed, and more letters will be mailed. Construction to replace pipes is expected to begin in late summer.