|
 Newark officials began handing out bottled water to some residents
earlier this month after tests found that some of the water filters
they had previously distributed were not working properly.
The city earlier said it would take eight years to replace lead
service lines connecting some 15,000 residential buildings across
the city to the Pequannock reservoir system, at a cost of $75
million.
The new plan announced on Monday, funded by a new bond issuance by
Essex County, would have those pipes all replaced within two to
three years.
"We all know that we have to work faster and harder and together,
importantly, to restore residents' trust in their water," New Jersey
Governor Phil Murphy said at a news conference on Monday. He was
joined by Newark Mayor Ras Baraka and Essex County Executive Joseph
DiVincenzo Jr.
In October 2018, city officials began giving out some 38,000 water
filters to residents to eliminate lead, which can cause health
problems, especially in children, even at microscopic levels. The
same kind of filters have been used in Flint, Michigan, a city that
drew national attention in 2015 after children were poisoned by lead
in the drinking water.
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After testing of those filters found problems this month, the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency joined New Jersey officials in
saying affected residents should use only bottled water for drinking
and cooking.
A Reuters investigation in 2016 found nearly 3,000 places in the
United States with lead poisoning rates much higher than those seen
in Flint, in many cases caused by decades-old flaking lead paint or
aging lead pipes.
(Reporting by Jonathan Allen in New York; Editing by Frank McGurty
and Matthew Lewis)
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