In Paterson, lead in the city's water is a game of 'Russian roulette.' Here's why
Concern is growing in Paterson over dangerous lead levels in drinking water that don’t approach other high-profile cases — like Flint and Newark — but may be harder to remediate because of a peculiar feature of the city’s distribution system and the inattention of state and local officials.
Two-thirds of samples taken in a 2016 study by the New Jersey Community Development Corporation, a Paterson community advocacy agency, found dangerous levels of lead in drinking water supplied to Paterson homes. In addition, lead was found in the water of 94% of Paterson homes tested over the past three years and exceeded federal standards in about 10% of the samples, according to data from the Paterson's water supplier.
The results provided by the Passaic Valley Water Commission have raised questions about the safety of Paterson's water supply. Still, they do not compare with the situation unfolding in Newark, where dangerously unsafe lead levels have been found in more than 45% of homes tested earlier this year. Those results prompted a crisis-level reaction, including the distribution of bottled water.
But the lead levels in Paterson’s water are consistently higher than in most neighboring towns served by PVWC — driven by the dangerous heavy metal leaching from aged pipes and plumbing after the water is treated. PVWC officials say the city’s water woes are harder to remediate than elsewhere because Paterson’s 135-year-old distribution system doesn’t allow for the addition of phosphates that reduce the corrosion. Phosphates are used to line pipes to prevent lead leaching into water.
“If Paterson was its own water system it would be shut,” said Joseph Getz, a consultant hired by the water commission in 2014 to help educate the public on the lead threat. “We’re playing Russian roulette.”
No amount of lead in water is considered safe for human consumption, as it has been linked to damage in the brain and kidneys. The greatest effects of lead exposure are on infants, young children and pregnant women.
The federal government says there is a cause for concern when lead readings exceed a measurement of five parts per billion. The United States Environmental Protection Agency says action needs to be taken when more than 10% of readings in a system exceed a reading of 15 parts per billion.
Paterson is one of 15 towns that get water from the PVWC, a public agency governed by a seven-member board appointed by the mayors of its three owner cities — Clifton, Passaic and Paterson.
During the past three years, the PVWC tested for lead in the water in 306 Paterson homes and came up with results that topped the federal standard of 15 parts per billion (ppb) in 28 of them, or 9.15% of the cases. Officials concede the sampling is small, voluntary and likely does not reflect the scope of the problem in the city. The New Jersey Community Development Corporation study demonstrated significantly higher percentages, with 63 of 101 homes exceeding 15 ppb.
Some advocates wonder why the lead contamination in Paterson’s drinking water has gotten so little attention.
“Paterson is the forgotten child — again,” said Jeff Tittel, director of the New Jersey Sierra Club.
PVWC said it has been sending reports documenting the presence of lead in Paterson’s drinking water to municipal officials and residents for years. But city officials do not seem to share the alarm expressed by Getz.
Paterson’s health officer, Dr. Paul Persaud, said in a recent interview that he doesn’t consider the quality of Paterson’s drinking water to be a problem. Mayor Andre Sayegh called a press conference on Thursday to announce the receipt of a $25,000 grant that will be used to distribute flyers about the dangers of lead and create a registry of addresses in Paterson where lead is problematic.
Those efforts came against the backdrop of Gov. Phil Murphy’s announcement that day that he wants New Jersey to spend $500 million to remove all lead pipes in the state over the next decade. Amid the growing concern and resources devoted to problem statewide, some Paterson residents and community groups say city officials have been flat-footed in recognizing and addressing the problem.
“They’re clueless, and there is no sense of urgency,” said Theodore “TJ” Best, a Passaic County freeholder, referring to the city’s response to the lead situation. Best said he recently had his 1920s-era home on Paterson’s East Side privately tested and found lead levels in the water exceeded those that prompted action in Newark.
“Something has to happen,” the freeholder said.
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The drinking water crisis in Newark has again focused national attention on lead in public drinking water, but across the United States, it is estimated there may be another 500 systems where dangerous levels are present. In North Jersey, elevated levels recently were found in homes serviced by Suez Water in Bergen County.
In each case, lead leaches from service-line pipes that connect water mains to homes — well after lead-free drinking water leaves treatment facilities, experts and officials said. Any home built before 1986 could contain lead in its plumbing, either in service lines, solder or fixtures.
But homes with plumbing from before World War II are most likely to contain lead; the most lead lines were installed from the 1800s through the 1920s, according to experts. About a quarter of the housing stock in Paterson was built before 1940, according to the American Community Survey.
Experts have said the ultimate solution lies in removing service lines and plumbing — a costly and sometimes complicated undertaking that could take years. Interim fixes, however, center on adding the anti-corrosive phosphates to treated water — an industry standard around the country.
Paterson’s water is treated at the PVWC plant in Little Falls and then held at reservoirs — on Garret Mountain and near the Great Falls — until it is distributed in the city. The two reservoirs are also designed to provide an emergency water supply if the main treatment plant stops operating, too. PVWC says the use of the anti-corrosives isn’t possible since those reservoirs are uncovered, and adding phosphates would trigger toxic algae blooms.
Nearly a decade ago the federal government ordered PVWC to either cover or re-treat the water it stores in the open-air reservoirs to shield it from environmental contaminants — like animal and bird feces and runoff — and even external tampering. The project has been stalled by opponents in the community who say capping thereservoirs would mar the landscape.
The utility says the logistics of adding the phosphates after treatment — as it does for Passaic, Clifton and, just recently, Prospect Park — are impossible in the tight geography of Paterson’s water distribution system, particularly surrounding the Levine Reservoir near the Great Falls.
While wrangling over the issue has continued in Paterson, almost every other open reservoir that holds treated water in the country has been eliminated. There were 750 in service in 1975. Now there are just seven around the country, including the three used by the PVWC, said Joseph A. Bella, executive director at the utility.
Bella said he’s frustrated by the inability to resolve the issue.
“Without the ability to use phosphate-based corrosion inhibitors, Paterson residents remain at an elevated risk of lead in their drinking water,” he said. “Adding phosphates to Paterson’s water supply would lower the lead test results by three or four times.”
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Replacing lead lines
Meanwhile, the PVWC has replaced nearly 35,000 utility-owned lead lines throughout its system and has fewer than 200 to go, said Getz. The problem now lies in the plumbing inside homes and in the customer-owned service lines running from the curb to homes and business, officials said.
It’s been difficult to get an inventory of which properties still have lead service lines in the PVWC system.
“This water company started in 1894 …The data is on index cards, we’re not really sure of the accuracy,” said Getz.
The PVWC says it has between 180 and 200 known lead service lines in its system. In addition, PVWC says it does not know the primary material of an additional 3,200 of its lines.
Those lines are jointly owned by the PVWC — which has responsibility from the water main to a homeowner's property line — and homeowners, who own the lines that run on their properties. The latter are the responsibility of property owners to replace. PVWC will replace for a $4,000 fee.
Suez in Bergen County is seeking state approval to replace homeowners’ lateral lines for $1,000 and pass alone the difference to all its ratepayers. PVWC officials and experts explained the disparity in prices by saying that they have a smaller base of customers, while utilities like Suez can spread the expense among a larger base of ratepayers.
Essex County has borrowed money to provide funding for lateral line replacements in Newark, and in the southern part of the state American Water is doing free lateral line replacements for homes built before 1950.
“This is more challenging for mid-size systems like PVWC that don’t have the resources” of a larger utility, said Catherine Klinger-Kutcher, national lead campaign director for the Green and Healthy Homes Initiative, a nonprofit advocacy group. “It’s hard to get a sense of urgency around this issue.”
Getz, the PVWC consultant, said public outreach has been particularly difficult in Paterson, where more than 70% of households are rentals. He also cited language barriers, and said the commission has sent out notifications about lead in English, Spanish, Polish, Farsi, Arabic and Bengali.
The utility has paid Getz’s firm, JGSC Group, $140,000 per year since 2014 to coordinate its lead outreach efforts.
PVWC has offered customers a zero-interest loan to cover the cost of the lateral replacements, but has had few takers. Since 2016, just 186 lateral lines have been replaced and 55 customers have taken the loan, said Getz.
Sylvia Perez is among the 186 Paterson homeowners who have had the remediation work completed. She said she jumped at the chance to have new lines installed for free at her three-family home on East 26th Street when PVWC was making repairs on her block near 10th Avenue. Getz said the free replacement is available for homeowners if the utility is replacing its lines on the block.
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“I have kids, so I pay attention. I didn’t want to take any chances,” said Perez, an accountant. “But I still buy Poland Spring, and tell my tenants to do the same.”
Paterson has been identified by the state as one of seven cities where children have elevated levels of lead in their blood. The city health officer, Persaud, said most of the problem stemmed from sources other than water, such as dust from lead paint.
“We don’t have cases in Paterson where we attribute the lead poisoning to water, but it does add to the lead burden,” he said.
Local health officials around the country and even those from the federal Centers for Disease Control have been slow to recognize the lead threat in water even as the Environmental Protection Agency has adopted more stringent standards, said Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, a pediatrician whose research exposed the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, where failure to add anti-corrosives to the water supply spiked lead levels in 2014.
“The legacy of lead lingers in paint, soil and drinking water,” said Hanna-Attisha, author of What the Eyes Don't See. “The scope of the problem becomes overwhelming to folks.”
Government support, she said, is needed to address the massive infrastructure retooling needed.
The recent action in Newark was spurred by a lawsuit filed by the National Resources Defense Council, a nonprofit advocacy group, about the dangerous levels of lead in that city’s drinking water.
“A lot of government officials are in denial that there’s a problem, we’ve seen it time after time," said the National Resources group’s senior director of health, Erik Olson.
Inattention and inaction
The inability to add anti-corrosives to Paterson’s reservoir is only part of the equation, experts said.
The Passaic River, where it bends on the Little Falls-Totowa border, is the main source for PVWC’s water. It is pumped from the river and treated at the utility’s state-of-the-art plant in Little Falls before it goes to the holding reservoirs.
In the summer, the flow in that highly urbanized section of the river can be 90% effluents — treated sewage that comes from several dozen upstream treatment plants along the Passaic and is tributaries. PVWC buys water from the Wanaque Reservoir to mix in so the system meets quality standards, noted Tittel, director of the New Jersey Sierra Club.
The dirtier the source water, the more acidic it is because of pollutants, making it more corrosive, Tittel said. The more corrosion, the more lead leaches from the pipes, he pointed out.
The PVWC reports its lead data on a system-wide basis to the state, so that Paterson’s high lead levels get mixed in and watered down by better numbers for surrounding towns, Getz said. As a system, PVWC exceeded the 15 ppb a half dozen times in the last 10 years.
Newark is giving out bottled water and filters and working to adjust the chemical balance of its water treatment after 169 of its 370 samples reported in the spring exceeded 15 ppb. Some 10% of the Newark homes tested had 57 ppb or greater.
Over the past three years, 10% of Paterson homes had 13.9 ppb or greater.
“The standard is 15 (ppb) — it should be five (ppb) — and we still can’t meet it,” Tittel said.
Corrosion control is important, but it can be unreliable, subject to the vagaries of weather and runoff and dozens of other factors, experts say. Filters also are a stop-gap measure, said Chris Sturm, managing director of policy and water for NJ Future, an environmental group.
“Ultimately the issue of interior plumbing needs to be addressed” Sturm said.
The Jersey Water Works Lead Water Task Force released a package of policy recommendations on Thursday that included multiple approaches, some of which have worked in other states such as legislation that requires disclosure of lead plumbing as a condition of property sale or as part of inspection of rentals.
The task force also called for a 10-year state program to replace all lead service lines and to create a capital funding plan for the estimated $2 billion cost of doing so across the state.
Newark is considering a plan to make line replacement mandatory and there are a raft of bills now pending in the state legislature dealing with the issue. Funding will be key, particularly for a system like PVWC, where two of the three owner cities are financially distressed.
Even with financing, there are still challenges with getting people on board. Homeowners don’t want their property disrupted. And, because the effects of lead are long-term, officials and water customers don’t feel an urgency on the issue.
“It’s very expensive and it seems daunting but it’s actually a very finite problem,” said Sturm. “It can get done — step by step.”
Editor’s note: The reporting for this story was partly funded by a grant from the nonprofit New Jersey Community Development Corporation to the Citizens Campaign, which owns Paterson Press.