Newark Schools: 'We Don't Know' if Water Tests Were Analyzed

When Newark officials announced this week that the water in 30 school buildings may not be safe to drink, and that the lead pipes in the buildings are the problem, parent Rosa Pizarro thought this couldn't have happened overnight.

Half of the district’s buildings are affected. 

“Maybe the district didn’t take the right precautions the previous year,” Pizarro said.

Pizarro, who is from Ecuador, wondered if last year's test results also had elevated levels.

Turns out, district officials don't know.

WNYC asked Newark Public Schools if they could say with certainty that the past year's water results were properly analyzed and cleared. They couldn't.

A district official told WNYC water sample results come in 65 separate files — one for each school. And the district doesn’t know for sure if anyone ever looked at the past results. They're now asking the state Department of Environmental Protection to help them sort through them. 

"There needs to be more communication," Pizarro said. "That needs to be the priority." 

Pizzaro has a 7-year-old son and an 8-year-old granddaughter at Wilson Avenue — one of the schools with lead levels up to 35 times what is considered safe. She said for at least two days after the district became aware of the problem, no one in the city, the school system or the state said anything. 

“Nothing, absolutely nothing,” Pizarro said.

She found out about the lead contamination from a community group called the Ironbound Community Corporation. Molly Greenberg, the group's Environmental Policy Manager, said parents have more questions than anyone is answering.

“It’s really terrible to tell people, ‘We don’t know yet, we're trying to find out,’” Greenberg said.

Newark students and staff are now using bottled water for drinking and to prepare food in the cafeteria. Greenberg said the old lead pipes need to be replaced.

“You cannot sustain public schools on bottled water,” she said. “If you can budget for that, we need to think about budgeting for infrastructure.”

Another New Jersey district has been there. Camden schools discovered high levels of lead in their pipes in 2002. Fourteen years later, students there are still drinking bottled water at a cost of $75,000 a year.