New Orleans is finally tackling a public health crisis more than a century in the making: tens of thousands of lead pipes still delivering drinking water to homes across the city.

The Sewerage and Water Board is seeking a contractor to manage a decade-long program to identify and replace an estimated 40,000 lead service lines, using federal infrastructure dollars flowing through Louisiana's Drinking Water State Revolving Fund. Lead exposure damages children's developing brains, and New Orleans children have documented elevated blood lead levels, particularly in neighborhoods like the Lower Ninth Ward, Tremé, and Central City.

Lead pipes were standard when New Orleans built much of its water system between the 1880s and 1986, when Congress banned them. About 60 percent of the city's homes were built before 1960. For decades, those pipes have been leaching lead into tap water.

The project comes as the Environmental Protection Agency now requires water systems nationwide to replace all lead lines within 10 years, a dramatic acceleration from previous timelines. Louisiana received roughly $200 million in federal infrastructure funding for lead replacement statewide. New Orleans, with the state's largest concentration of lead pipes, is getting the biggest share.

The scale of the challenge is massive: inventorying every service line in a city where records are incomplete, coordinating replacements across hundreds of blocks, and managing construction without disrupting water service. The water board is seeking a firm to handle planning, construction oversight, and program management through 2036.

The same agency struggled with basic functions in recent years. A 2017 billing system collapse left residents without bills for months, then hit them with massive charges. The board operates under a 2021 federal consent decree after repeated water quality violations.

The contractor search begins this month. The board is requiring 35 percent of the work go to disadvantaged businesses, reflecting federal mandates and local equity concerns in a majority-Black city where lead exposure has hit communities of color hardest.

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