The Newark water crisis is among the most disturbing and prominent cases of corruption and negligence in the recent history of New Jersey. Newark is a city in New Jersey, where the drinking water is supplied from local reservoirs, which are under the jurisdiction of Newark Watershed Conservation and Development Corporation (NWCDC). NWCDC is under the direct control and supervision of the Mayor of Newark, who is also responsible for the given issue. The main problem was rooted in the fact that lead levels in the drinking water were highly elevated, which is dangerous and detrimental to the population’s health. The water pollution was revealed due to multiple water studies conducted by non-profit organizations as well as certain federal agencies. The data was acquired from several Newark public schools, where all of them showed elevated levels of lead in the water.
The given case is a demonstration of water pollution, which primarily affected public school students alongside Newark citizens. Such a case led to public outrage due to poor management and corruption within these organizations. The main responsible entity is Newark Watershed Conservation and Development Corporation, which was violating the Safe Drinking Water Act (SWDA) by not being able to treat water properly to prevent lead leakage from the pipes (NRDC, 2020). In other words, the key officials and managers in NWCDC were intentionally dismissing the key legal requirements to gain profit at the cost of the public’s health.
The main danger of lead is its toxicity, and clinical lead poisoning has always been one of the most serious occupational diseases. Medical and technical recommendations for the prevention of poisoning were reflected in a significant decrease in the registered cases of the disease, as well as in less serious clinical manifestations. However, it is now clear that harmful effects occur at dose levels that are still considered acceptable in production. Industrial consumption of lead is increasing, and new industries, such as plastics, are being added to industries that have traditionally used the metal. Consequently, representatives of many professions are exposed to harmful effects. Rolled lead is used primarily for the production of equipment for the storage and handling of sulfuric acid. The use of lead pipes for water and urban gas pipelines is currently limited. Spray plating with molten lead is hazardous as it generates dust and leads vapor at high temperatures.
The dismantling of steel structures such as bridges and ships that have been painted with lead-based paints often causes lead poisoning. When metallic lead is heated to 550 ° C, lead vapors are released, after which they are oxidized. This can be the case when cleaning metals, smelting bronze and brass, spraying metallic lead, calcining lead, laying pipes in chemical plants, destroying ships, and burning, cutting, and welding steel structures coated with paint containing lead tetroxide.
The most impacted people are people residing in Newark city as well as northern regions. Although lead poisoning is harmful to any person, the most vulnerable populations are pregnant women and children. It is stated that leading to the lowest levels can still deal irreparable damage to the children’s well-being, which can be manifested in learning and behavioral disorders alongside lowered IQ (Rosner, 2019). In other words, these types of health disruptions are permanent since they affect the course of human development, where the effects last for a lifetime. In addition, children are generally more at risk of lead poisoning due to their smaller size and higher water consumption needs (Hauptman et al., 2017). Therefore, the case reveals that its ramifications are long-lasting with major implications for the residents’ future regarding the younger generation. Adults are also damaged by lead-prisoned water consumption, and the health risks are decreased fertility, abnormal menstrual cycles, anemia, and peripheral neuropathy (Miracle, 2017). In other words, the detrimental consequences of lead accumulation in one’s body can severely hinder a person’s ability to reproduce, be energetic, and preserve good mental health.
In the case of broken laws, the key violation is based on the fact that Newark Watershed Conservation and Development Corporation did not adhere to the Safe Drinking Water Act. The given legal element outlines a list of standards, which need to be met to ensure the overall safety of the drinking water. SWDA was originally passed by Congress in the year of 1974, and its currently regulated and enforced by the United States Environmental Protection Agency EPA (EPA, 2020). More specifically, the regulations in regards to appropriate lead levels were dismissed, which is prevented through pipeline changes and regular checks in regards to lead leakage from these pipes. For example, both state and city officials stated that they plan to borrow $120 million to speed up the process of pipeline change because the lack of drinking water in such a large city is a major problem (Bates, 2019). In other words, it is important to be able to regulate appropriate lead pollution levels in the drinking water, where the safest amounts are close to zero.
After the study results were released and the lead contamination was confirmed, the city officials undertook measures to correct the issue. The initial measure was based on distributing water filters to all affected residents, which were designed to filter out the lead in the water. However, it was later announced that the distributed filters were not working due to post-filtering lead levels still exceeding the limit of 15 parts per billion, which is both state and federal requirements (Ingber, 2019). Thus, it is evident that filters were practically useless at ensuring that the public was consuming minimal amounts of lead through their drinking water.
Subsequently, the state and city officials decided to change the major pipelines across the city, which were the sources of lead leakage into the water. However, the work is still partially in progress, and the locals are unable to wait until the repairing process is over. Therefore, the decision was made that each household is given two cases of 24 half-liter bottles (Aratani, 2019). In September of 2019, the officials declared that the distributed filters were effective at reducing the lead levels down to 10 parts per billion (Iati, 2019). However, such a safe level can only be achieved by properly installing and maintaining the filters, which might not always be the case because some households are forced to do these actions on their own (EPA, 2019). It is evident that among all distributed filters, some can be a malfunction, while others are installed incorrectly.
In other to eliminate such mass-scale pollution, it is important to rely less on intervention and more on prevention. The latter is manifested in the proper and honest functioning of regulatory bodies, which need to hold the mayors and organizations, such as Newark Watershed Conservation and Development Corporation, accountable. It is important for a city to regularly check the in-water lead levels as well as support independent non-profit organizations, which are do not have a conflict of interest in identifying these issues. It is also critical to regularly change the pipeline system to ensure that the pipes are not becoming the source of lead leakage. The case shows that changing the entire pipeline system of a city at once takes years and massive investments, which is why the incremental modifications sound more plausible.
In conclusion, the Newark water crisis is a population-wide water pollution problem, where it was revealed that the drinking water contained a high level of lead. It is important to indicate that there are no safe lead levels, which means that lead poisoning can lead to serious health ramifications. Although all strata of the population can be damaged by lead exposure, children and pregnant women can be considered the most vulnerable populations. Lead can lead to major developmental issues in children and unborn fetuses, where the effects are long-lasting or even permanent. Lowered IQ, blood pressure, mental disorders, and behavioral issues are all among a wide range of health damages c caused by such poisoning. The city and state officials responded by distributing filters, which later turned out to be ineffective at reducing lead levels. Since then, all residents were given plastic water bottles per household to wait it out until the pipeline system was fully changed.
References
Aratani, R. (2019). ‘Damage has been done’: Newark water crisis echoes Flint.The Guardian. Web.
Bates, J. (2019). Newark officials providing bottled water to 15,000 homes over lead contamination concerns. Here’s what you need to know about the city’s water crisis.Time. Web.
EPA. (2019). EPA continues to provide support to the city of Newark and the state of New Jersey.United States Environmental Protection Agency. Web.
EPA. (2020). Overview of the Safe Drinking Water Act.United States Environmental Protection Agency. Web.
Hauptman, M., Bruccoleri, R., & Woolf, A. D. (2017). An update on childhood lead poisoning.Clinical Pediatric Emergency Medicine, 18(3), 181-192. Web.
Iati, M. (2019). Toxic lead, scared parents and simmering anger: A month inside a city without clean water.The Washington Post. Web.
Ingber, S. (2019). Newark’s drinking water problem: Lead and unreliable filters.NPR. Web.
Miracle, V. A. (2017). Lead poisoning in children and adults. Dimensions of Critical Care Nursing, 36(1), 71-73. Web.
NRDC. (2020). Newark drinking water crisis.NRDC. Web.
Rosner, D. (2019). Newark’s lead-water crisis is a national problem. Columbia News. Web.