DOES THIS CITY’S PROGRESS ON REMOVING LEAD WATER LINES SHOW THE POTENTIAL FOR U.S.-WIDE REPLACEMENT?

Ensia
Lynne Peeples

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In July 2018, tests showed that the drinking water supply serving Yvette Jordan’s home in Newark, New Jersey, contained nearly 45 parts per billion (ppb) of lead — three times the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s action level for the neurotoxic heavy metal. It was a similar story for many families across her city. A lead crisis had struck Newark, and it was drawing comparisons to the tainted water that devastated Flint, Michigan, a few years earlier.

Yet what subsequently played out in Newark — for the most part, anyway — should serve as a “national model,” says Jordan, who is a high school history teacher.