Much of Newark's drinking water arrives from reservoirs in northern New Jersey, processed through treatment plants before flowing to homes and businesses through a network of service lines -- many of which were lined with lead. For roughly twenty years, the city had added sodium silicate to the water as a corrosion inhibitor, creating a protective coating inside the pipes that kept lead from leaching into the supply. Then, in 2015, city officials increased the water's acidity to reduce possible carcinogens. The higher acidity undermined the sodium silicate's effectiveness. By 2016, water testing at Newark Public Schools showed elevated lead levels at roughly half the district's buildings. City and state officials blamed the problem on poor internal plumbing. They were wrong -- or at least deeply incomplete. The corrosion was systemic, and the agency responsible for managing the city's water safety, the Newark Watershed Conservation and Development Corporation, was already mired in corruption so severe that the New Jersey State Comptroller had issued a damning report in 2014.

Mayor Ras Baraka dismissed comparisons to the Flint, Michigan water crisis as "absolutely and outrageously false statements," posting a rebuttal on the city's website that was later deleted. In the city's annual water quality mailing, residents were told the lead issue affected only older homes. A second round of testing in January 2018 confirmed continued elevated lead levels, but the messaging did not change. In February 2018, engineering firm CDM Smith emailed the city to report that the corrosion prevention strategy "has not been effective." Newark distributed Pur water filters to affected residents, but many proved faulty. In December 2018, the city hired Mercury Public Affairs -- the same public relations firm that Michigan's governor had retained during the Flint crisis -- for $225,000 to manage the negative publicity. Records later showed that mismanagement and corruption at the watershed agency coincided with the period when water acidity levels began rising, and city officials admitted some water test records had been "lost" during the corruption period.

Lead poisoning is insidious precisely because it often produces no obvious symptoms. It accumulates silently, causing learning disabilities, behavioral problems, and at very high levels, seizures, coma, and death. No safe blood lead level has ever been identified. Pregnant women and young children are the most vulnerable. Newark's children were the canaries: the 281 toddlers with elevated blood lead levels in 2017 represented the sharpest evidence that something had gone profoundly wrong with the city's water. The city established Lead-Safe Houses -- the only program of its kind in New Jersey -- to temporarily relocate families with children showing elevated levels when no other lead-safe housing was available. In May 2019, the city finally added orthophosphate to the water supply, a chemical that would take roughly six months to form a new protective coating inside the pipes. In August 2019, $120 million in federal and state funds was secured to replace the city's estimated 18,000 lead service lines.

By August 2021, most of Newark's lead pipes had been replaced with copper, and new state tests showed lead levels dropping. The crisis appeared to be resolving. Then, in February 2024, inspectors examining four properties found that three had service lines only partially replaced by a third-party contractor. The city fixed those lines immediately and announced a full audit. In October 2024, the U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey revealed the scope of the fraud: JAS Group Enterprise, Inc., the company contracted for a portion of the replacements, had falsified reports at 1,500 properties. From 2020 to 2022, the company submitted photographs of copper pipes it claimed were newly installed replacements -- some photos intentionally blurry, others showing lead pipes partially obscured with dirt. Workers were allegedly instructed to leave lead pipes in the ground and to polish existing copper pipes to make them appear new. The company had received more than $10 million. City officials excavated 400 of the suspect sites and found 28 with lead pipes still in place, all of which were then replaced.