Newark Lead Water Update: City Has Now Replaced 15,000 Pipes – Newark, NJ Patch

NEWARK, NJ — More than a year has passed since Newark got a $120 million bond from Essex County to help it tackle its lead water contamination woes. But now – after replacing nearly 15,000 of 18,000 aging, privately owned service pipes – the investment has clearly begun to pay off, officials say.

On Monday, Newark officials announced that the city’s Lead Service Line Replacement program has reached its final stage. It’s a big milestone for Newark, which went into crisis mode after the discovery of elevated levels of lead in the water supply at thousands of local homes.

Newark briefly turned to bottled water and filters as stopgap solutions while it put several long-term fixes into play. One of those fixes – replacing thousands of lead-lined pipes at local homes – got a major boost in August 2019 when Essex County helped the city to borrow $120 million in funding to speed up the process.

The money helped Newark to follow through on a promise to help cash-strapped homeowners by completely paying for a project that can normally cost thousands of dollars. Now, more than 83 percent of those lines have been replaced with copper pipes – at no cost to taxpayers or residents, officials said.

“From the beginning, this hasn’t just been about lead lines, but about securing our community’s health, safety and quality of life, today and into the future,” Mayor Ras Baraka said. “I’m delighted to share, that barring unforeseen circumstances, Newark will not only remove every last lead service line in our city but well ahead of schedule, perhaps even by the spring.”

“Last year, we all knew that replacing the service pipes was the only long-term solution to address the high levels of lead in Newark’s water,” Essex County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo Jr. said. “On the first anniversary of this partnership, we are able to see what can be accomplished to protect the health and quality of life of our residents when governments work together and share their resources.”

Monday’s update also got a thumbs-up from Gov. Phil Murphy.

“Aging water infrastructure has impacted not only the City of Newark, but communities across New Jersey and our entire nation,” Murphy said. “Today’s announcement builds on the state’s commitment to replacing lead service lines within the next 10 years to provide every resident with access to clean and safe drinking water.”

Another of the city’s long-term fixes was launched when the city introduced a new corrosion treatment system last year. That effort has also been producing results; average lead levels in Newark’s water recently fell below 15 parts per billion, the first time Newark has found itself below the U.S. EPA’s allowable trace lead presence since 2017.

However, some advocates have cautioned that despite the gains, the city isn’t home free.

In July, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), which previously launched a lawsuit against the city over its bottled water distribution program, said that Newark “isn’t out of the woods yet.”

“Simply put, there are no safe levels of lead,” said Erik Olson, senior strategic director for health at the NRDC. “It’s promising that lead levels in Newark’s drinking water are apparently coming down, and that many lead service lines have been replaced. But as the mayor said, the job isn’t finished yet.”

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