Newark touts end of lead water crisis as it continues replacing 18,000 pipes

Newark's lead levels dip

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka on Thursday, July 2, 2020 praised a "significant milestone" after preliminary results showed the city's lead levels dropped below the federal threshold.Rebecca Panico | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Newark officials on Thursday praised preliminary results that showed the city’s water dipped below the federal threshold for lead for the first time in three years.

That federal lead standard for drinking water is 15 parts per billion for the 90th percentile of samples collected. As of Thursday morning, the state Department of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) Drinking Water Watch website showed the city’s water system at 14.1 parts per billion.

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka told reporters Thursday this was a “significant” milestone and was excited to share the news that the new chemical the city has been using to treat its water - orthophosphate - is working.

“This is not an opportunity for us to say the lead issue in Newark is finished,” Baraka said. “However, it’s our opportunity to share good news in the spirit of all of the craziness that has been going on for a long time.”

Newark’s drinking water is monitored for lead on a six-month basis; the most recent monitoring period began on January 1 and closed on June 30.

The state DEP said it is still receiving samples from the city and all are required to be submitted by July 10. It will perform a data quality review and make a determination about compliance likely by the end of July.

Kareem Adeem, the city’s water director, said 99.5% of water samples across Newark have already been analyzed. He said 172 locations were tested across the city’s two water systems, including 118 in the area served by the troubled Pequannock water plant.

“Our executive team and our consultants and our scientists right now don’t foresee a change in those results increasing,” Adeem explained, adding that only homes with lead service lines were tested and about 15 were above the federal limit for lead.

Newark's lead levels drop

Newark Water and Sewer Department Director Kareem Adeem.Rebecca Panico | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

From the start of 2017 through the end of 2019, Newark exceeded the federal lead standard in six consecutive monitoring periods. At the height of that period, in the first half of 2019, the city’s water registered 57 parts per billion of lead.

Lead exposure can cause serious health effects, particularly to children. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, lead can damage a child’s brain and create learning and behavior problems. There is no safe amount of lead in a child’s blood.

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) sued the city over the elevated lead levels in 2018. That lawsuit is ongoing. NRDC’s senior strategy director for health, Erik Olson, said the work in Newark isn’t finished yet.

“Simply put, there are no safe levels of lead,” Olson said in a statement. “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. Detailed data should be publicly released to confirm the reported levels and to determine if lower levels will be sustained in the coming months.”

MORE: See our comic that draws out how lead got into drinking water across N.J.

At the heart of the Brick City’s lead struggles are thousands of lead service lines — garden hose-sized pipes that connect individual properties to water mains. Though there is no lead in Newark’s water when it leaves the treatment plant, lead can flake off of those pipes and into the water just before it reaches the tap if the water is not treated with proper corrosion control.

The city is in the midst of replacing all of its lead service lines. Almost 13,000 of the city’s 18,720 lead lines have been replaced, according to the mayor.

An NJ Advance Media investigation, published last December, found the corrosion control treatment at the city’s Pequannock water plant, which serves every one of Newark’s wards except the East Ward, failed as the city’s water department adjusted its treatment methods to try to deal with a different contaminant. It was this change in water quality, combined with the plethora of lead service lines in the city system, that caused the water crisis.

Newark began a new corrosion control treatment last May meant to address the water’s corrosive nature. City officials on Thursday credited that new corrosion control treatment for the drop, since only homes with lead service lines were tested.

Newark’s water problems grabbed national attention last summer, when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency requested the city hand out bottled water after doubts were raised about the effectiveness of city-distributed water filters

In August, Essex County announced a $120 million bond program to pay for the replacement of more than 18,000 lead service lines in Newark, greatly expanding a program that had launched that spring with a $12 million loan from the state.

The city hasn’t handed out bottled water since October. In November, a report found the water filters distributed by Newark were 99% effective.

Still, some residents have a deep mistrust of the city’s water. Debra Salters, who has been an outspoken critic of the mayor, will not easily trust what the administration says.

“I’m still drinking bottled water,” said Salters.

Read more of NJ.com’s coverage of New Jersey water issues here.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

Michael Sol Warren may be reached at mwarren@njadvancemedia.com.

If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.