BY WALTER ELLIOTT
NEWARK – Stakeholders in Newark’s 2018-21 Lead Service Line replacement program have been responding to the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection’s latest audit posted Sept. 6.
The DEP’s third audit this year involved digging up and inspecting 705 lines between city water mains and private property from among the 23,190 lines replaced during the four-year, $170 million emergency project. The exhumation was conducted Jan. 19 – Aug. 15.
Those 23,190 LSL include those replaced in Belleville’s Silver Lake section and part of Hillside where Newark Water and Sewer infrastructure were laid through those municipalities a century ago.
The third such audit since last winter was a check on the several third-party contractors who were assigned to replace found lead lines and fittings with new copper ones. They were given emergency no-bid contracts by the city.
That Jan. 19 – Aug. 15 DEP inspection found 32 of the 705 copper lines “have some remaining lead components.” The 32 lines with lead content is an increase from two earlier audits made in March and February.
A March 21 report, conducted Jan. 19 – March 20, found lead components in 12 of 90 dug up copper service lines. This report was live streamed by DEP Commissioner Shawn M. LaTourette to Mayor Ras Baraka Newark Water and Sewer Department Director Kareem Adeem and the Municipal Council.
The initial audit, presented to Newark Feb. 6, had four CSLs having lead content. The audit – which was given by Baraka in the council’s executive session – was partially and inadvertently live streamed to the Council Chamber gallery and YouTube audiences.
The Sept. 6 audit projects 7.4 percent of the sampled CSL as having lead content and March 21 audit 11 percent of the sampled lines. None of the audits quantified the lead content.
Early government and industrial standards, on one hand, had a very low quantity standard in the parts per billion in a gallon of water. Recent years, however, demonstrate that there is no tolerable lead content.
Exposure to lead in solid or particulate form can lead to brain damage. Young children and pregnant women are particularly susceptible to miscarriage, premature birth, low birth weight, and arrested development of the brain and nervous system.
Replacing lead materials has been a decades-long process. The petroleum industry replaced lead in gasoline with other “no-knock” additives around 1985. Sales of lead pipes and fittings were later banned.
Many of those lead plumbing lines were used from the 1910s through the 1970s.during two 20th Century housing booms. Newark was put on notice when high lead content was found among several Newark Public School building plumbing fixtures in 2016.
Newark’s Leased Service Line Replacement Program, accelerated by a $120 million loan from the Essex County Improvement Authority, was viewed as a nationwide remediation model.
The State of New Jersey used Newark’s example to start a statewide LSLRP. Both Newark and the state had minority contracting and training components.
Newark is meanwhile paying back the ECIA through the issue of 30-year municipal bonds.
Two questions immediately came up Sept. 6: “Are the CSLs Safe” and “What Went Wrong?”
Newark Water and Sewer spokesman Mark Di Ionno pointed to 4.5 years of DEP compliance reports.
“We’ve been in compliance with testing reports from January 2020 to June 2024,” said Di Ionno. “Our last report had us at 0 PPB. The DEP has moved us from six-month reporting to yearly reporting – which is a big deal.”
NJDEP itself said that Newark’s new filtering system, installed at the Montclair and Wanaque pumping stations during the LSLRP. They replaced older filtering systems whose chemicals became ineffective over 20 years’ time – contributing to the 2016-18 lead detection.
“NJDEP has confirmed that Newark’s corrosion control has been optimized to protect residents whose water may come into contact with plumbing that may still contain lead components,” stated the agency. “Newark has demonstrated compliance with the federal lead and copper rule. Unless you’re contracted with Newark to participate in an inspection of your service line, there’s nothing for you to do.”
But “What Happened?” is a more involved question to be answered.
The initial thinking Feb. 6, as stated by Baraka, was “that a third party may not have completed all that they wanted to complete in terms of (LSLs); they may have left a little lead fixture of a pipe in with the copper…that they’ve changed all the way from the house to the curb and you get to the main – and you’ve left some lead there.”
On March 20, LaTourette said: “We’re undertaking this audit so that we can verify that full replacements were done, because, in some instances, we found a remaining lead component on the street side.”
“During those 90 excavations, the minute we find a lead component, we immediately or within a day or two remove that lead component,” added Adeem March 20. The water and sewer director added that Newark will draw new line replacement funds from performance bonds that the third party contractor or vendor had posted – and are found to have failed to complete the work.
