with Dino Grandoni
From a public health perspective, Newark stands apart.
According to experts who uncovered high lead levels in children’s blood in Flint and Washington, Newark is different because it will be nearly impossible to determine the health damage already done to kids. That’s because the contamination timeline is unclear, the effectiveness of efforts to combat the problem are in question, and, in recent years, federal laws have made it harder to obtain records containing critical data on blood lead levels.
Damage from lead poisoning is irreversible; there is nothing a person can do about past lead exposure. The consequences can be long-term behavioral, cognitive and physical problems.
The timeline for Newark’s water problem is murky.
“In Flint, we can pinpoint when the crisis began. But in Newark, it’s gone under the radar for a while. There’s been quite a bit of denial,” said Mona Hanna-Attisha, the pediatrician who helped bring to light the severity of Flint’s water crisis in 2015.
Hanna-Attisha endured years of government officials publicly discrediting her patients’ blood lead results. In Washington, it took more than five years of lawsuits and Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for a whistleblower to obtain the data needed to analyze the impacts to kids under age 2. “I barely did it and it could not be done today,” says Marc Edwards, a civil engineer at Virginia Tech who helped blow the whistle on Washington’s lead contamination in the early 2000s.
Newark’s lead woes started making national headlines in 2016. The EPA provided The Washington Post with a timeline of the city’s water issue that starts at 2016. More lead measurement of concern popped up in 2017. According to people familiar with an ongoing lawsuit brought by a group of educators and the Natural Resources Defense Council, there’s evidence the city began effective and regular sampling protocols, as mandated by the Safe Drinking Water Act, only in 2017.
In other words, the beginning of the lead crisis coincides with the beginning of effective lead sampling.
Evidence discussed at a Thursday legal hearing raises the possibility that today’s problems may have roots going back to 1992. All large water systems in New Jersey were then supposed to do a study that, once approved by the state, would lay out a course of action for treating contaminated water. City officials have been unable to show the courts any document containing this critical 1992 approval. It’s possible Newark has been missing a state-approved water treatment plan since the 1990s.
Blood lead information for Newark’s children also will be hard to get.
Regulations have become stricter over the past decade. It’s now harder to access medical records through FOIA requests.
Additionally, there seems to be no independent, Newark-based medical professional who is willing to step forward with the data or, at the very least, an analysis.
“The key in Flint and D.C. was one person who had access to data that was independent of the cities and the agencies,” said Edwards. In the District, it was Dana Best who helped analyze data from Children’s National Medical Center. In Flint, Hanna-Attisha publicized data from Hurley Medical Center. No one like that has stepped forward in Newark.
Water-sourced lead effects are hard to identify, even with good data. According to Hanna-Attisha, lead has a 30-day half life in blood. Blood lead detection gets harder without regular exposure, even if damage to the nervous system has already occurred. “How much of lead comes from the water versus other sources really depends on the home and the kid. The most recent statement from EPA has water as the second-leading source of lead after paint,” said Hanna-Attisha.
Lastly – as demonstrated this past week – there’s ongoing confusion about the effectiveness of Newark’s existing lead relief programs.
As Brady Dennis and I reported, many parents received robocalls in 2017 and 2018 that “corrosion control” was addressing problems; the city said the water was safe. Yet a study published by the state this summer found that, in 2017, Newark’s toddlers and babies had the highest blood lead levels in the state, with 13 percent of their sample population having elevated, worrisome levels.
We also reported on the political theater that ensued after the EPA wrote a strongly worded letter to state and city officials about two city-provided water filters. The water filters, part of a temporary fix rolled out for Newark households in an area deemed most vulnerable, were faulty and motivated the EPA to recommend free bottled water for Newark residents.
In Flint, there was a robust in-home installation program for city-provided water filters. In Newark, the city simply dropped them off. Almost 40,000 filters were distributed to a population that had no experience installing them.
“The city is behind the ball a lot,” says Al Moussab, a history teacher in Newark’s public school system and a member of the Newark Education Workers Caucus, a plaintiff in the ongoing lawsuit against the city. “The city should have a robust plan to make sure people know how to use the filters. Poor instruction and education possibly could have led to this faulty filter problem.”
It’s too early to determine whether the faulty filters are emblematic of a program that has not protected residents since its 2018 launch. A sampling plan is still in preliminary stages. But it has sown confusion.
Shamika Thomas lives in the East Ward, a part of the city considered by Newark Mayor Ras Baraka as “not affected” by the lead problem. She is ineligible for free bottled water and yet, according to Thomas, her 6-year-old son has elevated blood lead levels.
“I’m so confused about what we are supposed to be doing here,” Thomas said.
In January and June, more than 10 percent of households in and around the East Ward reached lead levels the EPA deems worthy of intervention. “The city isn’t even recognizing problems with the Wanaque system,” the name for the water utility that services the East Ward, said Moussab. “They denied there was a problem there back in December but, at last week’s hearing, they said the problem was solved. That doesn’t make sense.”
According to Edwards, “damage has already been done” even though it may appear to residents the city is responding. This may explain why most parents still have not taken advantage of the city’s free blood lead testing for kids, tests that are key to reaching citywide public health conclusions.
The Safe Drinking Water Act put lead water reporting and enforcement in the hands of states. But no one is really accountable. Edwards put it bluntly: “No one goes to jail for having high lead in water. No one loses a paycheck.”
“The burden of environmental injustice,” said Hanna-Attisha, “falls unequally on children.”
To readers: The Energy 202 is on an abbreviated schedule for August. There will be one more edition tomorrow and then we're taking a break until after Labor Day.
POWER PLAYS
— Trump postpones Denmark trip after prime minister declines to sell him Greenland: Trump abruptly called off the planned trip via tweet on Tuesday because the country’s leader, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, was not interested in selling him Greenland, The Post's Felicia Sonmez, Anne Gearan and Damian Paletta report.
....The Prime Minister was able to save a great deal of expense and effort for both the United States and Denmark by being so direct. I thank her for that and look forward to rescheduling sometime in the future!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 20, 2019
Danish politicians of all political stripes expressed fury over the postponed visit, calling Trump "disrespectful" and his behavior an "insult" and like that of a "spoiled child,” according to The Post's Rick Noack. Greenland is a self-governing country that is part of the kingdom of Denmark.
Of course, the U.S. is already transforming the island without owning it: "America under President Trump might not own Greenland (yet), but decisions made by his administration will help determine the ice-covered island’s long-term fate and ours," writes The Post's Andrew Freedman. "U.S. emissions of greenhouse gases, as well as emissions from other countries, have tipped the balance to make Greenland a major contributor to global sea-level rise."
— Harris will go to climate town hall after all: After initially saying she wouldn't appear at a CNN event focused on global warming, Sen/ Kamala Harris's (D-Calif.) 2020 campaign did an about-face and told Rolling Stone she will attend the Sept. 4 event after all. Harris, a supporter of the Green New Deal, had weathered criticism from environmental activists for choosing to instead attend two previously scheduled fundraisers, according to ABC News. Nine other Democratic presidential candidates polling well enough to qualify for the forum focused on climate change said they will attend.
Still: Activists say the California senator's in-and-out dance is all the more reason the Democratic National Committee needs to sanction an official climate debate. "The uncertainty over whether Senator Harris would attend goes to show why we absolutely need a standalone climate debate," Sunrise Movement executive director Varshini Prakash said in a statement.
— Two mass killings a world apart apparently share "eco-fascist" theme: The suspect in the mosque killings in Christchurch, New Zealand, had railed about immigrants’ birthrates. The suspect in a shooting at an El Paso shopping center bemoaned how American consumer culture that is “creating a massive burden for future generations.” Both shootings are examples of "ecofacism" taken to the extreme, writes The Post's Joel Achenbach.
A primer on "ecofascism": "Many white supremacists have latched onto environmental themes, drawing connections between the protection of nature and racial exclusion," Achenbach writes. "These ideas have shown themselves to be particularly dangerous when adopted by unstable individuals prone to violence and convinced that they must take drastic actions to stave off catastrophe."
Mainstream environmentalists distance themselves from ideology: While "activists want to create a sense of urgency about climate change," Achenbach writes, mainstream group in recent years have also tried to emphasize social justice in environmental policy — i.e., making sure regulations do not just push pollution into poorer areas. “Hate is always looking for an opportunity to grab hold of something,” said Mustafa Santiago Ali, a vice president of the National Wildlife Federation.
— Trump "enraged" at California car deal: A senior Trump adviser met with executives from Toyota, Fiat Chrysler and General Motors in an effort to prevent more carmakers from siding with California in its dispute with the Trump administration over auto emissions standards, according to the New York Times. The lobbying effort comes after four major automakers struck a deal with the state for them to adhere to pollution standards nearly as stringnet as those put in place by the Obama administration. The Environmental Protection Agency is now trying to roll those back, and, according to the Times, Trump himself is "enraged" that the automakers are following California's lead.
EPA speaks out: In a statement, the agency's press office said the story "read more like a press release" for California's clean air agency, the California Air Resources Board.
— Interior official makes exit: Joe Balash, the Interior Department's assistant secretary for land and minerals, announced plans to leave his government post on Tuesday. "I stand with @POTUS in thanking him for his exemplary service to the American people," his boss, Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, said in a tweet. Raised in Alaska, Balash was helping prepare a part of the state's massive Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for its first oil lease sale while overseeing the Bureau of Land Management.
— "The jurisdiction assigned to you does not include saving the planet": One federal judge abmonished another in a brusque reply-all email over an upcoming climate-change seminar, The Post's Ann E. Marimow reports.
What happened? It started on July 3 when U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan forwarded the invitation to a climate seminar the judge put on with the support of the Federal Judicial Center, the research agency of the judicial branch. Within an hour a judicial colleague, Senior Appeals Court Judge A. Raymond Randolph, responded by urging Sullivan to get “back into the business of judging, which are what you are being paid to do.” He also said, “The jurisdiction assigned to you does not include saving the planet.”
What's the fallout? Two other judges on the email chain weighed in to defend Sullivan's email about the government-sanctioned seminar. Sullivan asked the judiciary committee that oversees judges’ conduct whether the email chain should be a reason for Randolph to recuse himself from climate-related cases. While the committee considers that request, Randolph's name has been dropped from a list of judges set to hear arguments Sept. 6 in a case brought by California and more than a dozen other states challenging an EPA decision to scrap some vehicle emissions standards.
