BLOOMFIELD, NJ (AP) – Hundreds of public water systems in New Jersey will have to inventory their lead pipes over the next decade and replace them under a new law signed by Democratic Governor Phil Murphy Thursday.
The law makes New Jersey the newest state that, along with California, Illinois, Michigan, and Ohio, requires an inventory of how many lead pipes carry drinking water to residents. Ingesting lead is in no way safe and causes developmental problems in children.
“This is a crisis that has developed for decades, and in some cases centuries,” Murphy said Thursday, noting that two-thirds of the New Jersey housing stock was dated before 1980, several years before leaded solder was banned in plumbing.
More than 225,000 children in New Jersey were diagnosed with elevated blood lead levels between 2000 and 2015, said Sean Jackson, CEO of Isles, a nonprofit community development and environmental organization based in Trenton.
The problem hit the headlines in 2019 when Newark and Trenton began identifying and replacing leading service lines. Newark has launched an aggressive program and is close to finalizing the replacement of approximately 20,000 senior service lines. But with the COVID-19 pandemic preoccupying government and local residents alike for the past year and a half, the visibility of the lead remediation has decreased.
It’s back in the spotlight with the new law, which sets multiple benchmarks for water systems. Proponents of the bill – passed without opposition in the legislature – say it is time lawmakers moved forward with the prosecution and replacement of lead pipes.
One persistent criticism, however, was a legal requirement that allows water systems to pass on at least a portion of the cost of the contract to customers. The price has yet to be set, but non-partisan law analysts estimated that the initial inventory could cost the local water systems $ 29 million and the replacement could cost $ 2.65 billion.
Gary Brune, a policy manager at the nonprofit, non-partisan New Jersey Future Group, said legal mandating that customers pay a share of the cost is a major concern for cities and towns with poorer residents.
The draft law sets several standards: an initial inventory of lead connection lines and unknown pipes must be made within 30 days of coming into force; that the first inventory must be sent to the state environmental protection ministry within six months, with a more detailed report in one year and follow-up reports two years after entry into force, until all lead pipes are replaced. The aim is to replace all lead service lines within 10 years.
Customers must also be notified no later than 30 days after the initial inventory if their tubes contain lead. And no later than one year after it comes into force, the water systems must submit a plan to replace the lead pipes to the DEP, which is updated annually.
There are nearly 600 municipal water systems in the state, with a total of about 2.4 million pipes.
Public records received from the Associated Press indicate that an inventory requested by DEP is already underway. These recordings show reactions of about 450 of the systems with about 850,000 pipes with unknown substances. About 145,000 have lead or galvanized metals to be replaced under the new law. The DEP records identify approximately 960,000 rows to replace – a category that includes the unknown rows.
Comments are closed.