“Success Has Many Fathers; Failure’s an Orphan.” (Italian idiom)
NEWARK – The plaintiffs and respondents of a 28-month-old federal civil suit over lead content in the city’s water infrastructure have been claiming that the suit’s objectives have been realized since its Jan. 26 settlement announcement.
“By the grace of God, we’re nearing completion of our lead service line replacement program,” said Mayor Ras Baraka in that Tuesday afternoon’s statement. “I’m thankful that we’re able to identify the issue, do the work and are able to help make our residents safer.”
“It’s a big victory for another generation or many generations of children,” said Natural Resources Defense Council senior health director Erik Olson, “who are going to have a much healthier and better life because they’re not going to be drinking lead in their water every day.”
Under the settlement, a to-be-assigned federal judge will oversee the completion of Newark’s Lead Service Line Replacement Program. a 23-month accelerated project that is nearing completion.
The LSLRP – assisted by an Aug. 26, 2018 $120 million, 30-year loan from the Essex County Improvement Authority – may well finish within the settlement’s June 30, 2021 benchmark for several conditions.
Newarkleadserviceline.com and a multilingual public education campaign, resident access to free water testing, free filters and/or, in particular cases, bottled water, will also continue until at least June 30.
The federal judge will also be monitoring several other conditions on out to Dec. 31, including:
· Newark’s regularly scheduled reporting of water quality samples to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and N.J. Department of Environmental Protection.
· Residents who reoccupy houses or apartment buildings that were vacant during the LSLRP are to immediately call Newark Water and Sewer Utility to join the free water testing and filters.
· Continued sub-15 parts per billion of lead per liter of water readings among 90 percent of water samples. The 15 ppb level is a threshold recognized by the EPA and DEP.
Although Baraka, Public Works Director Kareem Adeem, a DEP deputy director and attorneys for the respondents and plaintiffs have signed the settlement Jan. 10-22, it is not yet binding. The 19-page agreement takes effect when the to-be-assigned federal judge signs on.
Attorney’s fees and other costs of this litigation is being absorbed by the parties. Neither side said they had sought monetary damages.
While the agreement is focused on Newark’s 270,000 residents and customers within city limits, customers outside of the NWU’s Pequannock and Wanaque systems will also be benefitting from the city’s improvements and federal monitoring.
Belleville, Bloomfield, Nutley, Pequannock, Elizabeth and Hillside regularly buy all or some of its water from Newark. Their water departments are not parties to the above suit and have their own water departments conduct sampling and their own reporting to the DEP.
Some of the said customer towns have been benefiting from NWU’s orthophosphate additive plant off Montclair’s Valley Road since May 7, 2019. The plant on the Pequannock System, replaced the silicone silicate that was added upstream until it lost its effectiveness in 2017.
Belleville, which buys all of its water from Newark, received some water filters from Baraka and Adeem Jan. 17, 2020. Belleville Mayor Melham and Town Engineer Tom Hertis then distributed those filters to their “more vulnerable” residents.
Newark had also sent its LSLRP contractors to Belleville’s Silver Lake section later that year. NWU mains run beneath that panhandle neighborhood and directly bills around its 60 customers there. “Local Talk” saw one of contractor Roman E&G’s crew replacing a line on a block of Belmont Avenue in October.
The NRDC and the Newark Education Workers Caucus filed suit against Newark and the DEP here in federal court June 26, 2018. Both plaintiffs were asserting that the respondents knew that the city’s lead content readings had failed the EPA’s Lead and Copper Standards four of the previous five six-month samplings – reading that went back to 2016.
The NRDC asserted that some of Newark’s individual sample readings compared to those found in Flint. Mich. The environmental law firm, whose nearest offices are in New York City and Washington, D.C., was involved in the Flint case.
Some of NEWCaucus’ members had remembered how Newark Public Schools handled its own lead-in-water crisis. The state’s largest public school system shut off fixtures and trucked in bottled or boxed water for up to a year after 30 of its then-69 buildings internal lines had high lead readings in 2016-17.
NDRC and NEWCaucus originally demanded that Newark Water and Sewer Utilities extend free bottled water and filters and the LSLRP to the entire city regardless if they were served by the Pequannock or Wanaque systems. A federal judge dismissed that injunction call Dec. 19, 2018.
Some city officials tried to deflect NRDC’s charges as coming from outside agitators. Some residents and activist groups considered the legal firm as an allied watchdog.
Baraka, in a Jan. 30 open letter, called NRDC and NEWCausus being “the driver of our diligent efforts to eradicate lead in our drinking water” a “false narrative that (they) rescued Newark residents from a government incapable of solving its own problem.”
The Mayor noted that the LSLRP was not done under threat of the lawsuit. The city, indeed, started a $75 million program in July 2018 partially funded by the state.
The LSLRP was to have been conducted within eight years until Baraka accepted a $120 million loan from the ECIA Aug. 26, 2018. Essex County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo (D-Roseland) offered the loan whose ECIA bonds were to be paid back the next 30 years.
The $120 million bond-issued loan supercharged the LSLRP, resetting its completion target to 24 to 30 months. (DiVincenzo had offered similar terms to Belleville and other Essex County towns who had found Lead Service Lines.)
Newark, through its Essex County delegation, pushed through state legislation allowing the NWU to replace LSLs for free – on private property. LSLs, which link Newark water mains to buildings, have been historically and legally private landowner’s responsibility.
Baraka’s letter states that the city had been well on its way to fulfilling the settlement’s requirements for most of the 28 months’ litigation.
Newark’s approach to removing lead in water infrastructure, said both the respondents and plaintiffs, is a model for other municipalities to follow.
