This weekend, the City of Newark kicked off a massive city-wide, volunteer driven door-to-door effort to pass out water, inform, and sign up families to replace their lead service lines at no cost to residents. There will also be a phone banking operation based at the Office of Emergency Management call center.

“The City of Newark is working aggressively to solve our water issue once and for all by replacing every lead service line in our city safely, quickly and at no cost to our residents,” said Mayor Ras J. Baraka. “I thank all the volunteers for stepping up to help their neighbors as part of this community-wide effort. Together, we can resolve this issue for all of Newark.”

Volunteers will visit all 18,000 homes across the City of Newark identified as having lead service lines. They will be assembled out in the community to supply residents with water and ask property owners that have lead service lines to sign up for the City’s free Lead Service Line Replacement program. If the property is renter-occupied, volunteers will gather contact information for the property owners so that the City can conduct additional outreach. Volunteers will be canvassing on Saturdays from 1pm to 4pm and on weekdays from 6pm to 8pm.

To date, the City has replaced more than 800 lead service lines. The City of Newark is implementing an unprecedented $120 million Lead Service Line Replacement program to expedite the replacement of every remaining lead service line in the City. In addition, the City introduced a local ordinance that would mandate that all property owners with lead service lines either replace the lines on their own or give the City the authority to make the replacement. With the nation’s highest rate of renters of any major city – 74% – this will eliminate a major obstacle the City faces in securing permission from the owners of tenant-occupied properties.

For more information on the Lead Service Replacement Program, Newark residents can visit  https://www.newarkleadserviceline.com.

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- NEWARK -