The City of Little Falls has been awarded $2,862,300 in state funding to inventory and replace lead service lines throughout the city, Governor Kathy Hochul’s office announced this week.
The award is part of a $130 million round of grants distributed to 24 municipalities across New York State through the Governor’s Lead Infrastructure Forgiveness and Transformation (LIFT) Grants program.
Recipients ranged from major cities like Rochester ($14 million) and Buffalo ($11.8 million) to smaller upstate communities such as the Village of Frankfort ($301,778) and the City of Oneonta ($433,500), putting Little Falls’ award roughly in the middle of the pack statewide.
Lead service lines – the pipes connecting individual homes to water mains – are considered the single most significant source of lead contamination in drinking water. Lead can leach into water supplies when those lines, along with faucets and fixtures, corrode, a risk that increases in water with high acidity or low mineral content.
The problem is most common in older cities and in homes built before 1986, a description that fits much of Little Falls’ aging housing stock.
The funding draws on the federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), which requires that a portion of lead line funding be issued as loans rather than outright grants.
That’s where the state’s LIFT program comes in: once a municipality completes its project, New York State steps in to repay the loan portion on the community’s behalf, so that projects like Little Falls’ are effectively fully grant-funded in the end, and local ratepayers aren’t left covering the debt.
Awards were prioritized for communities that meet at least one of two criteria: a median household income below 80 percent of the regionally adjusted statewide median, or a poverty rate higher than the statewide average.
“We couldn’t be more thrilled with this LIFT award! I met yesterday with our City Engineer to discuss how we would cover the costs not covered by our existing grants. Like many old cities, we have a large percentage of homes built before 1940. 67.44% of those private lines are lead, so we have a big job on our hands, ” said Little Falls Mayor Deborah Kaufman.
Since 2022, New York State has awarded more than $600 million in federal IIJA funding for lead service line inventory and replacement work, split between $310 million in grants and $295 million in loans.
Counting this week’s announcement, the state has now committed more than $290 million in loan forgiveness through LIFT since Governor Hochul launched the program in 2024.
The lead-line grants are part of a broader push by the Hochul administration on water infrastructure. The governor’s FY27 budget includes a $3.75 billion water infrastructure investment plan, and the state has committed $10.6 billion to clean water projects since 2021.
The Environmental Facilities Corporation is separately reviewing applications for an additional $425 million in water and sewer modernization funding, with a portion earmarked for lead service line work.
New Yorkers can track EFC-funded projects through the agency’s online project impact dashboard.
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Now get her to give 3 million to cover the city debt!
You mean the 3.2 million that the Mayor already recived to deal with that through the deficit financing bill? Done…
And the other 12 million for the rest of the REAL debt? The real debt is 15 million according to documents on the state’s website. Not sure why we keep floating this 3.2 million other than to make the city look closer than they are to being even.
Barring a miracle like a huge employer (YEAH RIGHT!!!!) or a data center coming to town, (which I’m not against, but the majority of the city and other surrounding towns are because of one bad story they heard about from a state way out west), Little Falls will probably never be out of debt.
Staying around 3.2 million in debt without actually getting it lower is only delaying the eventual inevitable.