Newark offers residents bottled water

NEWARK, N.J. » For more than a year, Newark officials denied the city had a widespread lead problem with its drinking water.

Then, in an abrupt shift last fall, New Jersey’s largest city began giving out water filters to some residents.

On Sunday — two days after a scathing letter from the EPA raised concerns about the safety of the city’s drinking water — officials said they would start offering bottled water to residents.

Gov. Philip Murphy of New Jersey and Newark’s mayor, Ras Baraka, said in a joint statement that they would provide bottled water at four local centers, starting as early as Monday afternoon.

“Access to safe drinking water is critically important to our administrations, and we take health risks associated with lead in drinking water very seriously,” the statement said.

The decision to provide bottled water — a measure used during the water crisis in Flint, Michigan — came after testing this month showed that water filters provided by the city were not properly removing lead.

It was Newark’s strongest effort yet to address the problem and an acknowledgment of the severity of the public health crisis.

Officials in Newark were slow to acknowledge the problem and last October agreed to give away 40,000 water filters across the city of 285,000 people.

Like Flint, Newark has a large black population and a high poverty rate.

On Friday, a top official at the EPA sent the city a letter urging officials to provide bottled water to residents with lead pipes “as soon as possible.”

“We are unable at this time to assure Newark residents that their heath is fully protected when drinking tap water filtered through these devices,” the letter said in reference to city-issued water filters.

Baraka has defended the city’s response and rejected comparisons to the situation in Flint.

On Saturday, Baraka urged pregnant women and young children to use bottled water until additional testing was done, but he did not mention the recommendation from the EPA for all residents with lead pipes to use bottled water.

Critics like the Natural Resources Defense Council have called for the city to offer bottled water.

Erik Olson, the defense council’s senior director for health programs, said Baraka’s announcement was a good first step, but said the city should offer bottled water to even more residents.