Village of Lewiston sets sights on replacement of galvanized water lines

Said material now required to be substituted before selling a home – those staying put don’t have to make any change right now

By Joshua Maloni

GM/Managing Editor

Village of Lewiston residences with galvanized water lines will need to be upgraded before being sold, as trustees on Monday approved a new local law prompted by the federal government.

“It's got a lot to do with the LSLI (lead service line inventory),” Department of Public Works Superintendent Anthony Mang said. “The EPA is mandating that we inventory our service line materials. Anything that's galvanized is going to be required to be changed, because it's no longer suitable material.”

He stressed, “It's only going to have to be done as the home sells. We're not knocking on the door and making you do it if you occupy the home now – but for resale, that’s going to be part of the requirement.”

The change to village code 10-27 was approved by a 4-0 vote. Trustee Tina Coppins was excused. Municipal law now states, “Upon inspection of the water service lines, any galvanized service lines found must be replaced by the homeowner in order to pass inspection upon the sale of the home, with either copper or PEX material.”

Find the full text online at www.wnypapers.com (PDF).

Per the New York State Department of Health, “On Dec. 16, 2021, the federal Lead and Copper Rule Revisions (LCRR) went into effect. The revised rule requires every federally defined community and non-transient, non-community water system to develop a service line inventory (also called a lead service line inventory (LSLI) ).”

At a public hearing prior to the board’s vote, resident Tim Henderson said, “I'm certainly not against replacing the lead in the water lines, or the galvanized lines. I just think we need to maybe delay the vote tonight until more information or questions can be answered, such as is there an alternative to the mandatory replacing the lines, which could cost the homeowner as much as $5,000?”

Henderson added, “Seems to me there could be an alternative, such as a filter system in the house. And as far as the village lines that feed the residents, is there lead in them? … The letters that we got mentioned lead.”

Mang said, “The issue isn't about lead. I’m going to be real clear about that. There are no lead service lines in the village. We examined all the houses in the village when we did the meter replacements – there's no lead. What there is, is there's either copper or there's galvanized.

“And as far as filtration systems, the idea behind replacing the galvanized isn't necessarily to give you cleaner water; it's the fact that galvanized is an inferior material and has a tendency to rot and deteriorate, causing leaks and interruptions in service; low water pressure, low volume. Not necessarily health risks, but just functionality is the biggest issue.”

Mang said village residents received two letters – one “formulated by the EPA” where “we were instructed to send that specific format out”; and then an additional note stating some of what Mang explained at the meeting.

“There are other municipalities that do have those materials, so they formulated it as one giant universal letter,” he said. “We're trying to be more specific to exactly what materials we have. But, yeah, it was a scary letter; I can understand your concern.”

Mang added, “This is our way to kind of help out this effort, replace the lines that are inferior, and make sure that our village, as a whole, is going to be up to code in the future.

Trustee Nick Conde said, “If we put it off, we’d just be kicking the can down the road.”

Village of Lewiston Engineer Mike Marino, CEO of Nussbaumer & Clarke Engineers and Surveyors, said, “Pretty much every community I work with is doing this inventory, and it's crucial to get the numbers in place.”

He noted this is because other cities with statistics already in place “were able to leverage that to get grant funding through the ‘Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.’ So, it's critical for (the DPW) to be able to get that information on the inventory and knowing what we have so that we can apply for grants to help offset those costs in the future.”

Some residential costs could potentially be reimbursed, too.

Trustee Jim Fittante asked, “Have we started any stages yet to look at the grant money, or is this inventory first?

“The inventory is the first step,” Mang said. “Currently, what we've been doing is we've identified whatever we could through records or previous excavations. And now, as we get some of these submittals, whether they're from a photo, or even if you stop in and let us know that you have galvanized, we're trying to prioritize those people with galvanized services, so that we can 100% positive ID them and make sure that they're galvanized. And then we can tailor a plan that's specific to each residence.”

He explained, “The testing is going to be done in the form of excavation. We're going to begin this process June 1 of 2025 with the help of some contractors. It's basically going to be a service that exposes the materials at the shutoff on either side. If the material to the curb or to the main is galvanized, it's going to be on the village to respond to that; we're going to replace it at no cost to the homeowners. If it's from the shutoff to the home, that is private property, so that would fall onto the homeowner to replace that – when they go to sell the house.

“There wouldn't be an obligation as you live there, but if you ever sold the home. … At some point, if you have galvanized in your house, you're going to have to replace it. It's just a matter of time before it deteriorates and causes a leak. We're trying to get a jumpstart on that.”

For residents who have identified galvanized lines, or who are unsure if that material is in place, “We encourage you to send the photo in regardless,” Mang said.

He requested an email to [email protected].

“We can help you determine what material it is; and then, if it is galvanized, we'll put you on that priority list when we start to excavate,” Mang said. “You guys that do have galvanized will be the first to get exposed – the first ones to have their service lines 100% verified to be something that needs to be replaced.”