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NEW BEDFORD — Local officials are confident that the city’s ongoing efforts to replace 8,000 lead pipes will continue unimpeded, despite the EPA’s delay in the release of key funds.
On Dec. 1, after months of delay, the EPA released $3 billion in new funding to replace lead service pipes nationwide. Similar funding in past years has played a critical role in upgrading New Bedford’s aging water infrastructure.
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The EPA announcement came less than a week after a group of Massachusetts lawmakers, including U.S. Sens. Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren and U.S. Rep. William Keating, wrote a letter to EPA administrator Lee Zeldin urging the agency to release the overdue funds.
The funding, distributed through Drinking Water State Revolving Fund programs and introduced in the Biden administration’s 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Act, is intended to help states replace lead drinking water pipes over five years.
Since 2021, Massachusetts has received over half a billion dollars from the EPA for drinking water projects. That funding has grown even more critical as the EPA tightens its drinking water regulations. In October 2024, the EPA finalized a rule requiring that by 2037, all drinking water systems should identify and replace all water service lines containing lead.
The EPA has yet to announce how the $3 billion in new funding will be distributed to states. In a Dec. 2 statement, Keating admonished the agency for failing to act earlier.
“Replacing these service lines is the single most effective step we can take to reduce environmental lead exposure,” Keating’s statement said. “Funding delays have two critical impacts — they extend lead exposure by delaying construction, and they make the project more expensive as costs continue to rise due to inflation, tariffs, and other factors — and neither are acceptable.”
The funding has been critical for the City of New Bedford, which began replacing its lead service pipes over six years ago after an EPA mandate. In 2023, New Bedford received the largest federal disbursement of any city or town in Massachusetts, $18.4 million, to replace more than 1,000 lead service pipes around the city.
In 2024, the city received $11.4 million in loan forgiveness from the Massachusetts Clean Water Trust using funds from the State Revolving Fund.
As of December 2025, the city has replaced roughly 3,500 lead service pipes, a little under half of the 8,000 in the city. The city is about to begin Phase 3 of the project, which will remove an additional 2,440 pipes.
In June, the City Council approved a $38 million bond to fund water infrastructure improvements, $24.9 million of which would cover the next phase of the city’s lead service pipe removal, to be completed in 2029. The total cost of Phases 1, 2, and 3 is about $49.5 million, although Ponte said he expects much of the costs of Phase 3 to be forgiven as well.
Progress on New Bedford’s lead service line replacements
For the last six years, New Bedford has worked to comply with a national EPA mandate to remove the lead service lines that connect older homes and businesses to the water grid.
With the next several years of lead pipe removal fully funded, Department of Public Infrastructure Commissioner Jamie Ponte said he wasn’t sure how the EPA’s delay would affect the city.
“We’re optimistic that it won’t,” Ponte said. “We’re ahead of the curve as far as the removal process goes.”
According to EPA data, there are 28,702 known service pipes containing lead in Massachusetts. Lead service pipes are more common in neighborhoods built before lead drinking water standards were enacted.
No particular city neighborhood seems to have more lead pipes than others, Ponte added, although the North End, which tends to have newer houses, seems to be less affected.
Ponte said residents can reach out or look online to see if their home is serviced by a lead pipe, but even those affected should not be concerned about their water quality. Running the tap water for 30 seconds or until the water is noticeably colder can also significantly reduce any trace lead amounts.
“The distribution systems and treatment system are operated in a way to make it highly unlikely that lead will precipitate from any of their service pipes,” Ponte said. “You have great water.”
Email Brooke Kushwaha at bkushwaha@newbedfordlight.org.
Editor’s note: This story was modified on Dec. 11, 2025, to say that the city is under an EPA mandate, which applies to cities nationwide. A previous version of this story stated incorrectly that the city was under an EPA enforcement order.
More stories by Brooke Kushwaha
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I wish the city would publish a phased map of when this work will be done. It seems like the lead replacement program has been circling my part of the west end for years but skipping the 5 or so blocks around my young family.