Toxic Tap: Lead detected in 6 of 10 New Orleans homes amid delayed pipe replacement

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Each morning, Katherine Prevost fills her coffee maker with water from her kitchen faucet and presses the button. Until recently, she didn’t know the water may have contained a potent neurotoxin — lead.

She was shocked when a water test provided by Verite News found lead detected in the water coming from the tap.

“Now that means that I can’t do that anymore,” Prevost said. She already drank bottled water, but she relied on tap water for cooking everything from her gumbos and crawfish boils and other daily activities like brushing her teeth.

The New Orleans native moved to her block of Congress Street in the Upper Ninth Ward when she was a teenager. Nearly 60 years later, at 72, she still lives in the same home. Prevost replaced the plumbing inside her house after Hurricane Katrina, but modeling by the Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans showed that the city’s pipes leading to her house likely contain lead.

“We always thought we had good plumbing,” Prevost said. “But because the pipes on the street side is not fixed, that means that regardless of what we do, we’re gonna have lead in our water.”

On Prevost’s block alone, Verite detected lead in all but one of the eight households tested. The Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans’ inventory showed all of the homes with lead detected likely had lead pipes on the city’s side of the meter.

The toxic metal is common in water across New Orleans, according to previously unpublished city data obtained by Verite News. Between September 2022 and May 2025, about 60% of the households that participated in the S&WB’s first free water testing program had lead in their water. Almost every house with lead also exceeded the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended limit of 1 part per billion.

The S&WB doesn’t know the full extent of lead in the system, but this testing provides the most complete and recent snapshot the city has. More than 1,100 households were tested. The worst test recorded levels of lead 100 times the federal action level. (The program is ongoing, and residents can still request water testing kits.)

The S&WB is one of the oldest water systems on the Gulf Coast, with pipes dating back more than a century, and lead experts point to the city’s corroding lead water lines as a significant public health hazard.

“Lead is rather ubiquitous in our water, it is all around us,” said Adrienne Katner, an LSU professor known for her research on lead and drinking water.

Though the city’s water system complies with federal standards, federal officials concede that those standards don’t protect residents from harmful lead exposure. And lead experts and water advocates worry the city isn’t doing enough to alert residents and protect them from the danger.

Unlike most contaminants, lead in drinking water is regulated at a system level. For water utilities to remain compliant, the Environmental Protection Agency requires 90% of homes tested as part of a small survey to have less lead than the federal action level.

Currently, the action level is 15 parts per billion, but it will be reduced to 10 ppm in 2027 as part of new requirements under the updated Lead and Copper Rule. The updated rule also required all water systems to replace their lead pipes by 2037. The S&WB tests about 100 households for lead every three years. Since 2012, 90% of the homes it tested had 5 to 8 parts per billion of lead or less, according to the S&WB’s annual Consumer Confidence reports.

“ That is really where all of these things fall through the cracks, especially when we think about vulnerable populations,” said Taya Fontenette, who headed the Water Collaborative of Greater New Orleans ’ lead awareness program until recently. She found lead in 88% of the nearly 150 homes she tested in 2024.

No level of lead is safe to consume. Trace amounts can harm brain development in children, especially newborns, and contribute to a wide range of health issues in adults, including high blood pressure, kidney issues and even death from heart disease.

“It cannot be emphasized highly enough that lead affects us all. It affects nearly every organ in the body,” Katner said. “We all need to make every effort to reduce our exposure throughout our entire lifetime.”

Pipe replacement gained even more urgency in 2023, when saltwater moving up the Mississippi River threatened to enter the New Orleans water supply. Saltwater corrodes pipes faster, and the phenomenon will likely happen again as river dredging continues and human-caused climate change affects the potential for droughts.

Because of contract disputes, cost and legislative hurdles, it will likely take years before the remainder of the city’s tens of thousands of lead pipes are replaced. The longer the process takes, lead experts say many New Orleans residents will remain at risk of unsafe, chronic lead exposure through their drinking water.

Earlier this month, the S&WB started accepting new bids for a project management firm for its lead pipe program. Rebecca Johnsey, S&WB’s deputy general superintendent of water programs, said the utility will try to shorten the normal procurement process to award the contract by the end of this year and start construction in late 2027, a one-year delay.

“The reality is, to change out service lines, it’s going to be a very long and very expensive project for us,” Johnsey said. “This is not an overnight fix.”

In the meantime, the utility has started to replace lead lines on a small scale at schools and daycares. Johnsey said the utility also replaces lead lines when they’re found during roadwork projects. As of December, Hayman said the S&WB had replaced lines serving 14 schools and 144 residences in 2025, with three more replacements scheduled at schools. It had also conducted more than 350 service line inspections.

Johnsey said the S&WB’s focused on increasing public awareness so residents can protect themselves despite the utility’s poor history of notifying residents of lead risks.

Nationally, lead pipes are pervasive. Federal estimates suggest there could be 4 million to 9 million lead pipes in use across the country.

In New Orleans, the number of lead pipes remains unknown but the S&WB predicts 50% to 60% of its 150,000 metered service lines will need some portion replaced. The utility based its modeling on existing lead line records, age of development, water testing and other data.

Lead’s malleability made it attractive to use for waterlines as the city expanded during the early 20th century, said Katner. The material can bend without breaking, an asset when building in the shifting soils of a swamp.

Although the city’s water leaves the utility lead-free, lead in the pipes can leach into the water on its way to a resident. Johnsey said S&WB treats the water with a chemical that reduces corrosion, but it doesn’t fully prevent contamination.

Lead can also leach into the water on the customer’s side. Most New Orleans homes were built before lead pipes were banned in 1988, so the plumbing and fixtures could also be a source of contamination.

The only way to check is visually. The utility has to dig down to each unknown pipe to verify the material.

When water lines are disturbed, Katner said it can lead to spikes in lead levels that persist for months. Full and partial lead line replacement, road work, and even activities such as adding new meters can raise the risk of lead exposure. Katner said moving the lines can dislodge lead particles into the water, so residents should consistently filter their tap water or flush their lines before use if their meter or lines are disturbed.

In 2017, the New Orleans Office of the Inspector General investigated the S&WB’s failure to notify residents of the heightened lead risk when the ongoing reconstruction of the water supply system following Hurricane Katrina led to the partial replacement of some service lines. Inspector General Edouard Quatrevaux found thousands of New Orleans residents may have been unknowingly exposed to elevated levels of lead in drinking water.

Katner worried that residents still aren’t being alerted enough when lines are disturbed.

When the S&WB replaced SMART meters across the city from 2023 to 2025, the utility said it had beefed up its communication with door hangers, flyers, information on the website and a video to tell residents what to expect during installation. Ceara Labat, spokeswoman for S&WB, said that included language noting that the meter replacement might allow air, debris or contaminants in the water line and recommended flushing the plumbing by running cold water in the bathtub or shower for a few minutes.

The S&WB does provide a free lead-filtering water pitcher upon request — one of Quatrevaux’s 2017 recommendations — to residents with lead waterlines, though it doesn’t provide free replacement filters after the first six months.

But Katner said, at least at her home, she didn’t receive notification before or after the meter’s installation, so she wonders if other residents were missed. In the 2017 report, Quatrevaux had also recommended the utility provide detailed instructions on how to flush plumbing lines after infrastructure projects and conduct water testing at sites affected by the work until there was enough evidence that temporary lead increases had stopped.

A spokesperson for the Office of the Inspector General said the agency is considering a follow-up investigation to its 2017 report.

Sitting on her porch, Prevost said she struggles with an autoimmune disease, type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure. She wondered where they came from. She didn’t think they were generational because her parents didn’t develop those health problems.

After Verite found lead in her water, she wondered if the heavy metal could have contributed, though she hasn’t had her blood tested. Other senior residents on her block have similar health issues, and Verite also detected lead in their water.

“Is the lead affecting our health?” she said. “What diseases come from the lead and the pipes? Those are questions that need to be answered.”

The science isn’t settled on whether lead contributes to diabetes and autoimmune diseases, though two studies found they could be related. Decades of research have found that lead can have other wide-ranging effects on a person’s health.

Like many cities, New Orleans has a long history of lead contamination from several sources, such as peeling lead paint and soil. A recent investigation by Verite found unsafe levels of lead at more than 40 of the city’s playgrounds. Katner said the prevalence of lead pipes affects people of all ages.

“Lead in water poses a unique threat even at very low levels — 1 part per billion — because exposures are chronic and because lead accumulates in our bodies,” she said.

Newborns face the most danger. Megan Maraynes, an emergency room pediatrician at Manning Family Children’s, said lead can pass through a pregnant woman to her fetus, harming development and potentially leading to premature births.

“Lead is especially hazardous for children because their brain and their tissues are still developing,” Maraynes said.

Parents should filter their tap water if they plan to feed their babies with formula, Maraynes and other public health experts said. Some studies have found that Black infants might be more at risk of lead exposure than others because they’re more likely to drink formula. Newborns absorb the lead more easily than older children or adults, so they get the highest doses even at low levels. It’s hard to tell when infants are exposed because the effects manifest later with IQ loss, trouble in school and behavioral issues. By that time, Katner said, the damage is done.

“What we are really speaking about is irreversible brain damage that leads to learning disabilities and impulse control issues,” she said, adding that the first dose of lead has the greatest impact.

As people move through life, they become exposed through other sources, such as soil when children are crawling and playing. But lead in drinking water may still be there in the background, building up in the bones and affecting organ function. Katner said lead is slow to diminish in the bones and can release back into the bloodstream during pregnancy, lactation, aging and in times of stress.

The heavy metal damages kidneys and increases blood pressure, which can lead to hypertension, heart disease and strokes even at low levels. A 2018 study found that low-level, cumulative lead exposure could contribute to 412,000 deaths from cardiovascular disease in the U.S. annually.

“There is no treatment for the damage caused by lead,” Katner said. “All we can do is prevent exposure and ameliorate its impact.”

Public health experts say full lead line removal is the only way to ensure the water is safe and stop the generational harm caused by exposure to the neurotoxin. The S&WB initially planned to start replacing pipes en masse this fall. But early last year, the utility failed to follow its own process when selecting a contractor, leading to a drawn-out dispute.

The selection committee tasked with evaluating the proposals didn’t include a public health expert like the utility requires. Jennifer Avegno, then-director of the city’s health department, was serving in the role but wasn’t able to attend candidate interviews. She said the committee scheduled the interviews without checking her schedule, according to records of her communications with the committee. Without Avegno, the committee continued without the perspective of a public health professional.

After the committee awarded the contract to global engineering firm CDM Smith, the second-highest scoring bidder, EquiFlow NOLA, protested the decision. After several months, the utility’s hearing examiner rejected the protest in September, but S&WB Executive Director Randy Hayman overruled him in early December. Hayman said the failure to appoint a replacement for Avegno was a “potentially unlawful deviation” from the process laid out by the utility’s request for proposals.

“This departure violates fundamental principles of competitive selection and justifies re-solicitation of the services sought by the Board,” Hayman said. He made the decision about five months into his new role as the utility’s top leader after starting the job in late July.

At a special meeting of the New Orleans City Council’s public works committee in December, S&WB Executive Director Randy Hayman said he would work to further expedite the hiring of a contractor and construction.

“ I’m going to go back to the consultants and put fire on them to try to do the best they can to sharpen their pencils again. So we’ll continue to push to get this done as quickly and as efficiently as possible,” Hayman said.

But procurement isn’t the only hurdle.

S&WB expects to spend about $1 billion to replace all of the city’s lead pipes by 2037. So far, the utility has secured $152 million in funding from the Drinking Water State Revolving Loan Fund.

To use the federal drinking water funding, the utility has to ensure the full replacement of lead lines at every property it works on. But currently, Hayman and Johnsey said a provision of the state constitution doesn’t allow public money to pay for replacing lead lines on private property.

“ We are actively seeking legislative changes to be able to do that because we would like to be able to get these full replacements on service lines free of cost to the customer, both on the private and the public side,” Johnsey said.

The legislature has already removed some of the other barriers to replacement. In 2024, state lawmakers passed a law allowing municipalities to permit their utilities to enter private property to replace lead lines as long as they provide residents with enough notice.

Future federal funding for replacing lead pipes is also uncertain. The 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law dedicated $15 billion directly to lead line replacements across the country. That funding will end this year, though, and the Republican-led Congress recently redirected $125 million of the existing pool to wildfire prevention instead.

EquiFlow’s partners believed they could replace up to 85,000 lead pipes in New Orleans faster and cheaper than the S&WB’s current projections. The team was going to be coordinated by Community Infrastructure Partners, a national infrastructure project delivery firm. It designed a community-based lead replacement program focused on securing resident buy-in with transparency, local partnerships and extensive outreach. The company committed to fully inspecting the city’s lines and replacing its pipes within 6 to 7 years for $650 million, according to the proposal submitted to the S&WB.

At that cost, the company and city would likely still have to find hundreds of millions of dollars to fill the federal funding gap, but it would be more efficient and cost-effective. S&WB spokeswoman Ceara Labat said the utility based its own projections on current contract costs, the number of lead popes and additional expenses such as public communication, pitcher distribution and water testing. She said the S&WB’s estimate is in-line with estimates from the American Water Works Association.

Fontenette with the Water Collaborative said the nonprofit has also emphasized the importance of speed and equity. She said the group hopes the city replaces pipes faster than the 10-year deadline while ensuring regular updates and prioritizing areas with the most corroded water lines.

”Structured urgency. We want it to be informed, but we also don’t want anyone to drag their feet,” she said. “And we want, once they’re able to break ground, (the S&WB to) have nothing stopping them from getting this done as fast as possible.” Councilmember Aimee McCarron, who sits on the New Orleans City Council’s public works committee, said the issue of lead was especially urgent after Verite News’ playground investigation, and she’s already talking to the Moreno administration about remediating parks.

When it comes to water, she wants to see replacement coordinated with active or planned roadwork to avoid digging up the same streets. “Not only is this issue impacting caregivers and children citywide, but it also concerns my family personally because I have 6-year-old twins and live across from a park that measured high lead levels,” McCarron said, adding that all pipe replacements tied to street repairs “should be spread across the City as equitably as possible.”

On Congress Street, Prevost said she’s worried about who will get their pipes replaced first and how soon. Her street hasn’t had work done since before Katrina, so she’s worried her neighbors and other low-income areas won’t be prioritized. She currently serves as the president of Upper Ninth Ward’s Bunny Friend Neighborhood Association, and it’s been hard to address another major issue: flooding.

“We just sitting here with busted pipes. You can see the water leaking from under the ground, bubbling up when it’s raining,” she said. “I have to pick my battles.”

Until her pipes are replaced, she plans to stop brushing her teeth with tap water and will buy either a filter or watercooler to cut out lead. Residents should look for filters certified to reduce lead by NSF, which independently tests products. But she doesn’t want to do it forever.

“Fix our pipes so we can be healthy,” said Prevost. “And (so we) don’t have to worry about, ‘do we have to buy bottled water’ and ‘do we have to test the water’ before we put it up to our mouth.”

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This four-month investigation was supported by a Kozik Environmental Justice Reporting grant funded by the National Press Foundation and the National Press Club Journalism Institute. It was also produced as a project for the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism’s National Fellowship Fund and the Dennis A. Hunt Fund for Health Journalism.

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This story was originally published by Verite News and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.