Tainted Water, Ignored Warnings and a Boss With a Criminal Past
Source: New York Times
Tainted Water, Ignored Warnings and a Boss With a Criminal Past
How a long line of questionable decisions led to the crisis over lead contamination in Newark.
By Nick Corasaniti, Corey Kilgannon and John Schwartz
Aug. 24, 2019
Updated 12:39 p.m. ET
NEWARK — In the year after receiving test results showing alarming levels of lead in this city’s drinking water, Mayor Ras Baraka of Newark made a number of unexpected decisions.
He mailed a brochure to all city residents assuring them that “the quality of water meets all federal and state standards.”
He declared the water safe and then condemned, in capital letters on the city’s website, “outrageously false statements” to the contrary.
And he elevated an official to run the city’s water department who had served four years in prison for conspiring to sell five kilograms of cocaine.
The moves were the latest in a long line of questionable actions that have created one of the biggest environmental crises to hit a major American city in recent years. This month, the city told tens of thousands of Newark residents to drink bottled water, but only after receiving a stern warning from federal officials about lead leaching into tap water from aging pipes.
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An investigation by The New York Times, based on dozens of interviews and hundreds of pages of public records, reveals blunders at all levels of government in safeguarding Newark’s water infrastructure. City officials brushed aside warnings and allowed the system to deteriorate, while state and federal regulators often did not intervene forcefully enough to help prevent the crisis.
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Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/24/nyregion/newark-lead-water-crisis.html
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