Long Beach City Council Approaches ‘Phase 2’ Of Water Main Replacement At Tuesday's City Council Meeting

An item on Tuesday night’s City Council agenda would authorize a contract of over $5 million for water main replacement work.

By Tom Gambardella, Patch Staff

Jul 7, 2026 3:40 pm EDT

LONG BEACH, NY — The Long Beach City Council is moving along with its efforts to replace aging water infrastructure in the city, putting an item on Tuesday night’s agenda that could approve a contract for the second phase of the water main replacement.

Water infrastructure has been a hot topic in Long Beach dating back into the previous City Council term, when city council members said the city drew its water fund balance down to about a quarter of its prior amount in hopes of avoiding a rate increase.

In October, City Manager Dan Creighton said the sharp reduction in fund balance — from $1.8 million to $355,000 — left the city little room to replace aging infrastructure like water mains, wells, electronic monitoring services and more. According to city officials, the plan when the water fund was initially drawn down was to replenish the water fund by installing new water meters that would generate the necessary revenue to do so. The installation of those meters, officials said, stalled in recent years, with a target to replace about 8,000 meters within city limits.

In November, city officials told Patch they had replaced pipes on between 10 and 15 city blocks, with some pipes dating back to the early 1900s. While the average city block measures about 750 feet, there are roughly 55 miles of water infrastructure within the city limits, officials said.

According to Tuesday night’s agenda, the city council received four bids for the work on the water mains, out of which the city chose a bid from Farmingdale-based Thomas Novelli. City documents say Novelli’s services will come at a cost of $5,727,100, a figure that’s described as providing “the best overall value to the city” of all the bids that came in.

According to the agenda, the money to cover the cost of the water main contract is available in the following accounts:

(City of Long Beach) A breakdown of where the city says the money will come from to finance "Phase 2" of its water main replacement efforts.

The City Council meeting will begin at 7 p.m. Tuesday, and will be live streamed on the City's YouTube page.