Buffalo’s Lead Pipe Problem
Buffalo is a great city with a long history in America.
Given that Buffalo, like many other Northeastern cities, was built out many years ago, that often also means that the infrastructure in those cites then to be pretty old.
Most of the city of Buffalo as we know it was built out prior to World War II, and Buffalo some of the oldest housing stock in the entire nation. The prevalence of older homes also means there are a lot of older water service lines coming into peoples homes.
Those older lines, usually made from lead pipes, pose a very significant danger to the residents of the city.
Buffalo Has A Lead Pipe Problem
It's truly not a secret that Buffalo has lots of lead water service lines buried underground and those pipes are very old. We've been talking about this for a long time and those old lead pipes have been causing problems for the residents of Buffalo for years.
Buffalo had developed a plan to to some funds from the American Rescue Plan to do something about these issues. Which, by all accounts would make some major strides in fixing the more than 40,000 lead water lines that are estimated to exist.
However, a recent report by ABC News shows that not much has been accomplished over the last few years, even though progress was promised.
The Lead Pipe Problem In Buffalo Continues
The ABC News report details how Buffalo may need more than $500 million to make the necessary corrections to the underground services lines.
It's also estimated that, even if all of the money as available, it would take decades to replace all of the lines due to the sheer amount of lead pipes that exist in Buffalo.
The report goes on to say that only approximately 1,700 lines of the estimated 40,000 have been replaced over the 3 years it's been since the pipe replacement program started.
Millions Received From The Federal Government, But It's Not Enough
Buffalo has already received approximately $10 million from the American Rescue Plan and more funds will become available to Buffalo as part of New York State's plan to spend $4 billion updating infrastructure.
Only time will tell if Buffalo can get this right.