Newark residents still aren't convinced their water is safe to drink after lead water crisis
ABC News
Newark resident Marcellis Counts said he grew up feeling neglected by the city.
Five years after high levels of lead were detected in the water of 30 public schools in Newark, New Jersey, the city faces a new challenge of convincing residents affected by the crisis that the water is now safe to drink.
Newark resident Marcellis Counts said he grew up feeling neglected by the city and that's caused public distrust to run deeply.
"The water is just a clear example of how things are able to be neglected," Counts said. "Many people already knew that a lot of our water was bad anyway. So I always grew up not even drinking from water fountains when I went to school and stuff like that. So it was like that distrust."
After major signs of contaminated water appeared in 2016, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection required Newark to monitor lead levels. The city reported lead levels above the federal action level, which they said were due to corrosion of old lead water pipes throughout the city, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council.