“City officials in Newark said they learned in October that lead water contamination wasn’t just affecting a dozen homes, but was a “widespread problem,” potentially impacting as many as 40,000 residents. But, a newly-released email shows officials were warned at least seven months earlier — months they spent insisting the water was “absolutely safe to drink,” and assuring residents that the issue was confined to a small number of homes.
Beginning in April of this year, through messages on its website and in public statements, the city blamed old infrastructure for elevated lead levels in tap water samples. New court records in an ongoing federal lawsuit over the city’s lead problem, however, show a consultant pointed to another cause: Newark’s water treatment at one of its plants no longer appeared to work — an early sign that the issue could be widespread.
CDM Smith, the consultant hired by Newark to study how the city was treating its water, submitted its draft report in October but shared its initial findings with three officials as early as February, records show.
In a Feb. 22 email to the city’s top water department officials — including then-director Andrea Hall Adebowale and then-deputy director Kareem Adeem — the consultant said a preliminary review showed Newark’s method of preventing lead from corroding off old plumbing and dissolving into the distribution system “has not been effective.””