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Harris says Newark is a national ‘role model’ for lead pipe replacement
By
Karen Yi
Published Feb 11, 2022
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Karen Yi / WNYC
By
Karen Yi
Published Feb 11, 2022
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Vice President Kamala Harris touched down in Newark on Friday to tout the city’s replacement of more than 23,000 lead water pipes in less than three years as a “role model” for the rest of the country.
“Now other cities and other families and children around the country will benefit from the work you did right here,” Harris said during a panel discussion on replacing lead service lines. She was joined by Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan, Gov. Phil Murphy, U.S. Senator Cory Booker, Mayor Ras Baraka, and other local officials.
The Newark visit was the first stop on her cross-country tour to promote the $1 trillion bi-partisan infrastructure law President Joe Biden signed last year. The law will set aside $15 billion to remove lead service lines across the country. New Jersey is expected to get $48 million this year to start the work, according to the White House.
The issue has some urgency in major metropolitan areas with aging schools and housing stock, and the infrastructure to match. According to the EPA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, no amount of lead exposure is considered safe, especially in children.
“Taking action to reduce these exposures can improve outcomes,” the EPA says.
Now other cities and other families and children around the country will benefit from the work you did right here
Vice President Kamala Harris
The American Water Works Association estimates there are 350,000 lead service lines in the state, the fifth most in the country. Inventories previously obtained by Gothamist, however, show utilities don’t know what more than a million pipes are actually made of.
Newark officials acknowledged in 2018 that their treatment processes were “no longer effective” at keeping lead from leaching into drinking water. The city’s woes came quickly on the heels of the public health crisis in Flint, Michigan, where lead from aging pipes, along with other contaminants, exposed more than 100,000 residents to unsafe drinking water.
That crisis helped train an eye on aging pipes and other failing infrastructure in communities across the country.
Newark initially estimated that it had 15,000 lead service lines — which pump water from underground mains to people’s homes — and that it would take 10 years to remove them. Ultimately, the city replaced more than 23,000 in three years, at no cost to residents, after Essex County floated $120 million in bonds for the city.
Harris said lead in the drinking water caused by these old pipes was a “long-standing issue” in communities that had suffered “without acknowledgement of the need for a sense of urgency to fix the issue. Again, this has been a model.”
Newark’s elevated lead levels first spiked in 2017, after the water treatment process at one of its water facilities failed, causing old lead pipes to corrode into the tap water. Community activists at NEW Caucus and the Natural Resources Defense Council sued the city, prompting officials to begin distributing water filters while they corrected the treatment and replaced the lead pipes.
Harris praised the work of residents and community activists for continuing to demand solutions.
“When you speak up, it matters, you all are role models for community leaders across the country,” she said.
Across New Jersey, water utilities have to inventory and then replace their lead pipes in 10 years under a package of laws Murphy signed last year.
Tagged
newark
lead contamination
Kamala Harris
Karen Yi
Karen Yi covers homelessness and poverty. She joined the WNYC and Gothamist newsroom in 2020. Before that, Karen covered Newark for the Star-Ledger and spent almost a decade working for newspapers in New Jersey and Florida. She grew up in Miami and has a dog named Cashew. Got a tip? Email [email protected] or Signal 917-589-1460.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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