A US city received $500,000 to remove lead pipes – and still hasn’t spent it

Troy, New York, has yet to remove a single lead pipe five years after getting the money. What went wrong?

In 2018, almost 30 cities across New York state received federal money to carry out a specific, urgent task: removing lead service lines that poison drinking water.

The city of Troy – which sits across the Hudson River and just north of Albany – was among them, receiving $500,000. But five years later, city leaders have failed to spend a single dollar of that money, and have yet to remove a single lead pipe.