Syracuse officials outline 2,700-home lead service-line replacement plan, debate one-year third‑party testing contract

Syracuse City water officials on Monday described a phased plan to inventory and replace lead service lines and proposed a one‑year contract with an outside sampling firm to meet state and EPA testing deadlines.

The city’s water commissioner told council members the city “has about 14,000 known lead service lines” and that, because many service lines are unclassified, the total could be “up to 30,000.” The commissioner said replacing all privately owned service lines citywide could cost “about $300,000,000” in a worst‑case scenario. To begin, the city is targeting 2,700 homes for replacement using a mix of a Department of Health grant and a proposed $25 million bond.

Why it matters: Lead service‑line inventories and testing trigger state and federal sampling requirements and can lead to large capital programs. Council members raised concerns about speed, community trust and contracting: several questioned why the administration planned to waive a competitive request‑for‑proposals (RFP) and hire a single vendor for sampling rather than run a competitive process now.

City presentation and key details The commissioner said Syracuse draws treated water from Skaneateles Lake and that contamination risks arise after water enters private plumbing. “We have lead service lines throughout the city,” the commissioner said, and noted the city owns the public side of service lines while private owners (homeowners or landlords) own the side that runs from the curb stop to the meter.

For initial action, the city is prioritizing 2,700 properties where the public‑side replacement has already been completed, describing that group as “the lowest hanging fruit” and estimating roughly $8,000 per home for the private‑side work. The commissioner said the 2,700‑home effort would be funded in part with a $10 million Department of Health grant and a proposed $25 million bond. The city plans to bid the work in smaller packages so multiple contractors can participate.

Testing proposal and vendor concerns To meet New York and EPA sampling requirements the city must collect and submit a mandated number of tier‑1 samples (single‑family homes) every six months. The administration proposed contracting a third‑party firm — identified in discussion as 120 Water, the same firm used by Buffalo — on a one‑year contract to run the sampling, communications and lab submissions. The commissioner said, “We’re not going to be testing. So complete third party,” describing a fully outsourced approach for the required EPA tests.

Council members repeatedly pressed why the administration planned to waive an RFP and hire a single firm. One councilor said community trust would be better served by competitive bids and broader participation. Another asked why the city could not test more than the mandated minimum of 100 tier‑1 homes every six months and why multifamily buildings — where many tenants live — are excluded from tier‑1 testing under current state guidance.

Inventory, outreach and practical constraints Councilors and the commissioner discussed the city’s unknown inventory of service lines and options for accelerating identification. The commissioner said an inventory contractor could take years: “we found out that would take 10 years alone” to visit every unknown home, and added that the EPA permits using age and neighborhood patterns to estimate likely lead lines when direct inspection is impractical.

Officials also described operational challenges: past in‑house testing had been done by one staff member, staff turnover left the city without a current testing lead, and fieldwork often faces access problems when landlords or residents decline entry. The commissioner noted the city has distributed more than 6,200 water filters and continues to make them available to households that meet criteria.

Next steps and council direction Councilors asked the administration to continue vetting additional firms, to return with an RFP or multiple vendor options within several months, and to clarify how multifamily and tenant‑occupied properties will be addressed. The administration said the one‑year contract is intended to cover two sampling cycles and buy time to design a longer‑term program and to issue an RFP later.

The meeting record shows discussion and proposals but no formal council vote on the sampling contract or bond; the items remain proposals and requests for further action and detail.