Many Erie County homes — about 33,600 in the City of Buffalo alone — still have lead service lines that are seeping dangerous chemicals into the drinking water of residents. Congressman Tim Kennedy announced nearly $960,000 in additional federal funding to support the Erie County Water Authority's "Get The Lead Out" initiative.
“There is no reason in the world for any of that water to flow through lead lines. It is a generations-old mistake that this generation is working to fix, and we're doing it as expeditiously as possible," he said.
The grant is the latest funding that the program received this year to assist in lead remediation efforts. In January, the county received $1.6 million for service line replacements.
Elected officials announced the latest funding on Crisfield Avenue in Cheektowaga, as they say the initiative is increasing attention to homes in the county’s first-ring suburbs. Jerome Schad, chairman of the Erie County Water Authority, says the federal grant will assist the county in its goal of replacing all lead service lines at no cost to residents by 2027, a decade ahead of the Environmental Protection Agency’s national mandate.
“It's an ambitious goal, but one which we are well positioned to achieve in the second year of our three-year program to get the lead out initiative," he said.
So far in 2026, Schad says, the county has completed service line investigations at more than 11,500 homes, identified more than 2,000 lead service lines and completed about 1,100 replacements.
Elected officials say the program’s primary goal isn’t meeting deadlines; it’s protecting the most vulnerable populations. There is no safe amount of lead in drinking water, as deputy county executive Lisa Chimera pointed out, and severe cases of lead poisoning can cause irreversible cognitive damage to children.
“It’s not just an investment in our infrastructure; it is an investment in our children and really the public safety of everyone." she said.
Kennedy says the effort will help protect children from the irreversible harm caused by childhood lead poisoning, an issue that the county experiences at the highest rate and severity in New York State.
“I'm an occupational therapist. I come from a place of working with children with disabilities, some of which had those lifelong disabilities that they had to work through, attributed to lead poisoning when they were young children, whether that be through paint or water or whatnot, so this is personal, not just for me, I think, but for all of us,” he said.
Cheektowaga Town Supervisor Brian Nowak says the funding will help communities with older housing stock replace costly lead service lines without putting the full burden on homeowners or local ratepayers. But he says lead pipes are just one piece of a larger infrastructure problem facing first-ring suburbs.
“It goes beyond the water lines and lead, it gets into the gas lines that are underground that are rotting, it gets into the storm sewers that are crumbling gets into the electrical lines that are up there," he said. "We have an aging electrical grid in these first ring suburbs, and that requires significant investment.”
Nowak says grants are helpful, but first-ring suburbs will need much more investment to address aging infrastructure. He says the federal government should consider raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans to help cover those costs.
Residents can request at-home lead testing kits from the Erie County Water Authority.
