Rhode Island Infrastructure Bank Awards
$320,000 to North Providence for Residential Lead Line Upgrades
(North Providence, RI, December, 2025)

Mayor Charles Lombardi announced today that the Town of North Providence will be able to continue its successful “Remove/Replace the Whole Lead Pipe Program” with a $320,000.00 award from the Rhode Island Infrastructure Bank through the Water Infrastructure Improvement for the Nation (WIIN) Act . Funding will allow for approximately 70 additional homes to be serviced, this time in the Marieville neighborhood of North Providence.

Mayor Lombardi praised the Rhode Island Infrastructure Bank for their consistent recognition and support of this project – the first of its kind in New England to creatively mobilize private and public resources via a coalition which Mayor Lombardi convened in 2016. Due largely to last year’s award from the RI Infrastructure Bank, North Providence was able to upgrade 134 private side residential properties, with Providence Water authorizing 69 public side water line replacements in the Fruit Hill, Geneva, Lymansville, Allendale, and Centerdale neighborhoods of North Providence, for a total of 134 lead lines upgraded in 2025.

Lombardi began working with EPA Region 1 in 2016, being the first and only Mayor in New England and one just of a handful of mayors across the country to formally recognize the dangers of lead water lines, especially to children, and acted with urgency for them to be replaced.  The EPA awarded Mayor Lombardi with a Children’s Health Environmental Merit Award in 2018 for recognition of his exceptional work and commitment to the environment.  The EPA went to North Providence to produce a video on the “Getting the Lead Out” that was posted on the EPA National website https://youtu.be/gmaAyUDwzfs.

North Providence currently has around 840 lead water lines remaining,

Lombardi’s goal is to eliminate 100% of them.