City of Newark completes lead service line replacement program

Earlier in February, the City of Newark, New Jersey's Lead Service Line Replacement (LSLR) program announced it had completed nearly 24,000 replacements citywide in less than three years at no cost to residents. On Feb. 11, the city celebrated this project milestone with several prominent figures including Mayor Ras Baraka, Vice President Kamala Harris, EPA Administrator Michael Regan and New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy.

This effort to provide clean, safe, and reliable drinking water to all Newark residents initially began in March 2019 as an 8- to 10-year program. By September 2019, a $120 million bond from Essex County removed the cost for residents and the program’s timeline was reduced to three years. Newark was able to pivot from a public health crisis to a national model for other cities to follow for managing lead exposure in drinking water. This celebration comes on the heels of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that allocates $15 billion in federal funding for lead service line replacements and related activities across the country.