Melissa Harris-Perry: I'm Melissa Harris-Perry, and this is The Takeaway. Lead exposure, there's no safe level for kids or adults, but in children, the effects can be disastrous. According to the CDC, lead can cause damage to the brain and nervous system, delayed speech and development, emotional challenges, and underperformance in schools. Worldwide, nearly one in three children have dangerous blood lead levels, which is what makes this next story truly a bit of good news.
Two years ago, lead pipes in Newark, New Jersey meant the city faced a water crisis on par with what happened in Flint, Michigan, but today, nearly all of the city's 22,000 lead pipes have been replaced with copper pipes. Now, initially, the project was expected to take 10 years to complete, but thanks to an aggressive city-county partnership, it was completed in record time. For more on this, I spoke with Karen Yi, a reporter covering New Jersey for WNYC, and Karen started by telling me a bit about the impetus for Newark's pipe replacement project.
Karen Yi: A few years ago, Newark was in the news initially for having elevated lead levels in its schools. Then a year later, it turns out there was elevated lead levels in people's homes and the water coming out of the tap. That escalated when a group called the Natural Resources Defense Council threatened to sue, and then sued the city over just its high lead levels in the water and the fact that they felt the city wasn't doing enough to fix the problem.
Fast forward to the summer of 2019, the federal government steps in, and they actually mandate that the city distribute bottled water to thousands of residents. This was a huge deal. Newark was in the national press time and time again, and so around this time is when the city was rolling out its program to replace these lead pipes. These are lead service lines that snake underneath your home and pump water from the underground water main to individual homes and apartments.
They were replacing this but were moving pretty slowly, and that's when the county where they're in stepped up and said, "Hey, we want to expedite this. We're going to bond for you. Here's $120 million in bonded money," and that really set the ball rolling. They've been able to now replace almost every single lead service line in less than three years, and initially, at their pace, they were going to do this in 10 years.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Now, cities have crumbling infrastructure of all kinds. What in the world prompted the state to say this one was worth doing that bond for?
Karen Yi: I think it was a mixture of the public attention and public pressure to do something given the rising lead levels. No level of lead is safe, but at one point, Newark had four times the allowable federal level coming out of the tap water. This is infrastructure that has been underground and in the city and old cities for a really long time.
When you combine that with a treatment plant that wasn't operating effectively and where the treatment wasn't working, essentially, you had this acidic water pumping through these pipes and corroding the pipes and eating away, so that's why the lead was coming out, something needed to be done. I think that's where the county saw the opportunity, said, "Let's be a model for other cities. Let's actually put money into this to get this done quickly so that we don't have-- this mostly affects children and pregnant women. Let's not have another generation have to go through this."
Melissa Harris-Perry: Remind us about the dangers of lead and the impact that it does in fact have on human health and particularly on children and infants.
Karen Yi: Of course. It affects the development of children in particular, and lead is a contaminant that seeps into your bones, and it's also really dangerous for pregnant women and can cause miscarriages. I'll say the lead that you consume in water is probably at lower levels if you do consume it. Most lead poisoning that we know of, 4,000 kids are diagnosed with lead poisoning in New Jersey alone every year. Most of it comes from lead paint.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Which is on old buildings, right?
Karen Yi: Right, on old buildings. It could also be lead dust. It could be in soil. It comes from older homes. That's how most people get sick, but having lead in the water is also very dangerous because that's something you consume every day. If you actually boil water that has lead in it, it's actually worse for you.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Tell me, is this just a Newark problem, or is there reason to think that this kind of pipe problem, this lead leakage problem is happening in other cities?
Karen Yi: This is happening all over the country. I think the EPA estimates that there's 10 million of these lead pipes across the country. Lead is very malleable, and it was really cheap material. Everybody wanted to use it back in the day. This is something that we just have it as a country really invested money in, I think with what happened in Flint, Michigan, their water crisis, and then shortly thereafter followed by Newark's water crisis, it has put this renewed attention on this problem in particular because it's not something you see.
We take water for granted, we can't see these old lead pipes underground, but the good thing moving forward is with Newark, having done this project, Flint is almost done too. After five years of replacing their pipes, you see other cities start to try and do this and start to try and put this as a priority. Even president Biden, his Infrastructure Bill, we'll see how it works its way through Congress and how much money is actually set aside. I think at this point it's 15 billion, which is not what it will require to replace every single lead service line, but it's something right. Any money to help this problem goes a long way.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Does Newark now stand as a model, both for the speed and efficiency of getting it done and for the way that it was financed, will other cities be looking to this Newark model into this bonding model as a way to replace this crumbling infrastructure, which you indicate is really everywhere?
Karen Yi: I think so. Even Newark's harshest critics, I mentioned the Natural Resources Defense Council that sued the city, they're now touting Newark as a model city. I think the way Newark did it, a partnership between locals county and state officials is the way forward. There was a lot of moving parts to this. In some cities, these lead service lines are actually privately owned. The state had to okay Newark using public money on private property. That was the first thing.
The city then had to pass an ordinance that allowed construction crews to just start excavating on people's properties without having to chase, in some cases, absentee landlords. Three-quarters of the residents of Newark are renters. That saved a lot of time. With so much money being provided by the county, they could basically just go block by block and get it all done at once instead of doing piece mill here and there. That was efficient and effective. Then the fourth piece of this was that Newark turned this into a local jobs program and hired a lot of unemployed local residents. I think people are pointing to the way that the city did it as an effective and efficient way in the long-term be cost-effective.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Last thing on this. You've started in that response by talking about even the city's fiercest critics. Typically, residents are often among a city's fiercest critics, even as they love their city. I'm wondering if residents on the ground are again completely celebratory of this or if there's any concern, distrust, and if there is, how that's being managed relative to communicating with residents.
Karen Yi: I think for residents, visually seeing these construction crews. Newark has replaced 22,000 lead service lines. That is a big number. That's a lot of construction crews for the last two and a half years. Visually seeing the work has helped. They know the city is actually doing something, and I think that's part of the process of building back public trust after everything the city has been through, and I think they're going to get there.
I think by residents are relieved that this is finally coming to a close and are relieved actually to be able to feel safe opening the tap and using the water to cook, using the water to drink, those little things that you do every day. I think the process of building back public trust is going to take a while, but they're getting there.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Karen Yi is a reporter covering New Jersey for WNYC, and in this case, getting to tell a good news story, which is pretty great. Karen, thanks for joining us.
Karen Yi: Thank you so much.
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