Newark provides bottled water after filters fail to block lead in water

Newark, the largest city in New Jersey state of the US, has begun providing bottled water to residents, who may have been drinking tap water with high levels of lead.

Following the advice of the US Environmental Protection Agency, the city authorities began providing bottled water from four city centres, according to a joint statement of Newark Mayor Ras Baraka and New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy.

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was quoted by Washington Post as saying: “This is a very serious matter to me. We don’t take this lightly at all. Am I worried? Yeah, I am worried. And we are going to do what we can to get to the bottom of this.”

Tests carried out in the recent days indicated that the water filters provided to residents may not be sufficiently blocking lead.

After the findings from the tests, the Environmental Protection Agency’s regional administrator for New Jersey Peter Lopez told the city officials to provide bottled water to residents who have service lines with high lead levels.

Baraka was quoted by the publication as saying: “The results of these tests leave us with many questions, and we must expand our testing to understand what is happening.”

Officials have teamed up the Pur filter maker to understand why two of three filters failed during the tests.

The city distributed around 40,000 filters to residents since October 2018.

Meanwhile, the city authorities will continue to offer water testing for residents as well as free blood tests for children within the age of six.

In March 2016, around 30 schools in the city had to close their drinking lines following tests that indicated high lead levels in water.

Similarly, in 2017, during the testing of water services lines to residential homes, Newark exceeded the federal action level of 15 parts per billion of lead.