NJ is about to enact a law requiring water providers to eliminate all lead mains in 10 years (with caveat that they can apply for 5 year extender if they can’t make deadline). They must change minimum of 10% of lead mains a year to get to done. It’s a very ambitious schedule but NJ has the highest percentage of lead mains in the nation (age has a lot to do with this). Newark is already well on its way to eliminating lead mains in its system, doing more in less time than Flint, Michigan.

They could get even more ambitious had the state devoted more of the windfall budget to that goal, but they didn’t.

Meanwhile, Albany NY came upon a piece of history - they were replacing water mains in town, and came across an old water pipe made of wood. We’ve had that in NYC from time to time in Lower Manhattan, but it goes to show just how old some water distribution systems in the nation truly are. These probably date back to the earliest days of Albany’s history but were disconnected from water supplies in the 1800s as iron pipes supplanted earlier systems.