FACING A CRISIS

New Jersey Wants EPA to Fund Clean Water After Lead Contamination Found

The state’s environmental protection commissioner wants federal help to pay for bottled water for Newark residents.

A New Jersey state official wants the Environmental Protection Agency to help fund its program to distribute emergency bottled water to homes in Newark after lead was found in the water, NJ.com reports. After the city found that filters were not doing an adequate job removing lead from water in two homes, the EPA advised Newark to provide free bottled water to residents. In a letter Monday, New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Catherine McCabe wrote that the federal agency has “not offered any support” to the city to implement its recommendation. “Given the concerns EPA has here, we hope that EPA will offer assistance promptly,” she wrote. McCabe also wrote that it wasn’t clear how long the city could provide free, clean water to the 14,000 households that are eligible to receive it. Lead contamination has been an ongoing issue for Newark since 2017, and the city distributed more than 38,000 filters in an effort to help fix the issue. However, the test results in Newark caused the EPA to advise against relying on the filters for clean water.